News

Engineered Magic: Wooden Seed Carriers Mimic the Behavior of Self-Burying Seeds

Before a seed can grow into a tree, flower or plant, it needs to successfully implant itself in soil – a delicate and complex process. Seeds need to be able to take root and then remain protected from hungry birds and harsh environmental conditions. For the Erodium flower to implant a seed, its stalk forms a tightly wound, seed-carrying body with a long, curved tail at the top. When it begins to unwind, the twisting tail engages with the ground, causing the seed carrier to push itself upright. Further unwinding creates torque to drill down into the ground, burying the seed.

Inspired by Erodium’s magic, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Professor Teng Zhang worked with Lining Yao from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and a team of collaborators to engineer a biodegradable seed carrier referred to as E-seed. Continue Reading

Alison Patteson Named Cottrell Scholar

College of Arts and Sciences Assistant Professor Alison Patteson has been recognized with a 2023 Cottrell Scholar award, a prestigious national honor that ranks her among the country’s best faculty researchers and teachers from the fields of astronomy, chemistry and physics. A faculty member at Syracuse University since 2018 and a member of the BioInspired Institute, Patteson researches cell migration and how cells navigate and respond to their environment.

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Acharya Uses Powerful Computing to Help Identify Potential New Treatments for Coronaviruses

Coronaviruses, such as the one that causes COVID-19, have numerous protruding spikes salting their surfaces. When a coronavirus raises one of these spike proteins—like opening a finger to full length—it becomes capable of invading a human cell. The pointed spike can insert its key-like domain into a keyhole protein (ACE2) in the outer wall of a human cell, binding to it. And the spike protein becomes a gateway for infecting a cell. Continue Reading

Nature-Inspired Designs Could Offer Solutions for Global Challenges

Bioinspired research draws from the natural world to develop solutions for global challenges. But it can be difficult to turn these research ideas into actual materials and methods that can be applied to real world problems in areas like construction, energy and health care. That’s why Lisa Manning, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Physics and director of the BioInspired Institute at Syracuse University, led a workshop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in October to explore new paths to transform this research into industry applications. Continue Reading

Nangia and Ren Part of Collaborative Team Researching Preventing Infections in Engineered Tissue and Implantable Devices

Advancements in biomedical devices such as knee and hip implants, heart valves, pacemakers, dental implants, stents and catheters have improved quality of life for patients worldwide. These devices, however, introduce foreign material into a patient and are prone to chronic infections. Through a new grant, a cross-disciplinary group of experts will collaborate to develop new approaches to prevent device-associated infections and enhance the use of these implants. Continue Reading

Smart Gripping with Wanliang Shan

Assembling electronic devices requires precision and the ability to place key components in tight spaces. Manufacturing systems need the ability to grip a component and then release it in the right spot. To make it even more challenging – the grippers need to be tiny and able to grip and release items that are measured in microns.

Mechanical and aerospace engineering Professor Wanliang Shan started considering the problem in 2016 while he was at the University of Nevada – Reno and was awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) Materials, Engineering and Processing grant to explore the concept. Continue Reading

Ma Awarded NSF Manufacturing Grant for Scale-Up of Therapeutic Cell Products

More new therapeutic treatments for various diseases could be moved into clinical trials—and potentially faster into mainstream medical use—if scientists could find ways to manufacture exponentially higher quantities of the stem cell components needed for medical testing.

Spearheading work to make those cell manufacturing process discoveries is Associate Professor Zhen Ma, the Carol and Samuel Nappi Research Scholar in the College of Engineering and Computer Science. He is working with a newly awarded $500,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) future manufacturing seed grant and coordinating the project with bioengineering experts at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Continue Reading