2007-2008 Research Centers, Laboratories, and Institutes
Chih-Ming Ho (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering), Director, http://www.centerforcellcontrol.org
A cell consists of millions of intracellular molecules, which serve as building blocks for its structure and functions. Interactions among these building blocks display the property of self organization, which serves as the foundation of signaling networks and regulatory pathways. Through these interconnected networks, a cell--the basic unit of life--senses, responds, and adapts to its environment. These three characteristics are commonly observed in all complex systems. The goal of the Center for Cell Control (CCC) at UCLA is to apply an unprecedented approach toward efficiently searching for a potent drug cocktail for guiding biological systems to a directed phenotype. Nanoscale modalities and molecular sensors are used to understand the signal pathway responses under the influence of the drugs. This introduces engineering systems that can be applied toward regulation of a spectrum of cellular functions, such as cancer eradication, viral infection onset control, and stem cell differentiation.
This highly interdisciplinary approach demands strong synergetic collaboration between engineers, biologists, and clinical doctors at UCLA and UC Berkeley. Projects important to the goals of the NIH nanomedicine program are development of a smart petri-dish platform with advanced nanoscale modalities, capable of studying signal pathways at the network interaction level; and demonstration of the unique capability to determine optimal multiple drug combinations and apply the resulting drug cocktail as potential therapeutics in pathogenic diseases and cancer.
Three biological systems--stem cell, cancer, and viral infection--have been proposed. Because stem cells have interesting features closely mirroring circuit reprogramming, they are used as the first system for monitoring and interrogating reactions in the network of pathways. Viral infection and cancer cells will be used in drug combinatory studies. As the program becomes more mature, networks of all three systems will be interrogated by nano tools under the potent drug cocktails.
Center for Embedded Networked Sensing
National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center
Deborah Estrin (Computer Science), Director; http://www.cens.ucla.edu
UCLA's Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS) is a major research enterprise developing wireless sensor systems and applying this revolutionary technology to radically transform critical scientific and societal applications. Expanding on the concept of the Internet, these large-scale distributed systems, composed of smart wireless sensors and actuators embedded in the physical world, will eventually connect the entire physical world to the virtual world.
Embedded networked sensing systems can reveal previously unobservable phenomena through the use of adaptive, self-configuring wireless systems that enable spatially and temporally dense monitoring of challenging physical environments. This new technology will revolutionize biological and physical sciences, including tracking ecosystem dynamics and large-scale, real-time monitoring of seismic events.
The center forms a cornerstone for new transdisciplinary partnerships, such as creating innovative formats for film, theater, and digital media arts and enabling remote monitoring of patients' health. CENS hopes to have a significant impact on gender disparities in science and engineering at UCLA, providing increased hands-on research opportunities for undergraduate students, and middle and high school students.
Center for Energy Science and Technology Advanced Research
Mohamed A. Abdou, Director (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering); Neil B. Morley, Associate Director (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering); http://cestar.seas.ucla.edu
The Center for Energy Science and Technology Advanced Research (CESTAR) is an interdepartmental research center whose mission is to provide a common focal point for collaboration and synergism among researchers at UCLA involved in energy-related research. CESTAR helps enable energy research to become larger than the sum of its parts, promoting researcher teaming, expertise and equipment sharing, information exchange, and invited energy research seminars. CESTAR also provides a point of contact for those outside UCLA who are interested in learning about energy-related research conducted here.
CESTAR is organized around four specific energy thrust areas: fusion energy, hydrogen, materials for energy applications, and energy conversion and conservation.
Fusion Energy Science and technology for future fusion energy producing reactors. Current research includes:
Hydrogen Hydrogen-based transportation can yield significant reductions in emissions of toxic substances and accord significant health benefits to residents of Southern California, the U.S., and the world. The Hydrogen Engineering Research Consortium (HERC) brings together the expertise of academic and industrial resources to help bring about the onset of the hydrogen economy. Consumers are starting to reduce their driving and are looking for alternative transportation solutions. Major energy providers also view the use of hydrogen-powered fuel cells as the most sustainable mobility solution. The strongest argument for hydrogen as fuel, however, is the inability of current transportation systems to prevent the emission of large amounts of toxic substances.
Materials for Energy Applications Broad range of advanced materials with current focus on power generation by polymer solar cells. These plastic cells potentially cost little to fabricate and are convenient to install and maintain. A second focus is on new materials for energy storage, such as advanced batteries and hydrides. Current research spans from new materials to device architectures, including:
Center for Nanoscience Innovation for Defense
Defense Advanced Research Project Agency/Defense MicroElectronics Activity
Eli Yablonovitch (Electrical Engineering), Director
The Center for Nanoscience Innovation for Defense (CNID) was established to facilitate the rapid transition of research innovation in the nanosciences into applications for the defense sector. With nationally renowned faculty employing interdisciplinary approaches, the center brings discovery and innovation in nanoscience and nanoengineering to America's industries for the purpose of defense.
The center's research program seeks to understand and thereby control nanometer-scale systems for advanced technology. Research at UCLA focuses on four areas: quantum telecommunication nanodevices, development of a single-electron-spin microscope, photonic crystal nanooptical structures and circuits, and molecular level electronic and mechanical devices.
Funding through CNID will help equip the California NanoSystems Institute with state-of-the-art high-tech instrumentation, and also support graduate fellowships that will attract the best graduate students worldwide to advance nanoscience and nanotechnology research. Those students will be not only the nanoscience university researchers of the future, but also the nanotechnology talent for high-tech American businesses.
Center for Scalable and Integrated Nanomanufacturing
National Science Foundation Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center
Xiang Zhang, Director (UC Berkeley); Eli Yablonovitch, (Electrical Engineering), Co-Director; http://www.sinam.ucla.edu
The promise that nanotechnology holds for industries ranging from semiconductors to health care to national defense has largely been held back by the lack of manufacturing platforms that allow complex nanoengineered products and systems to be adopted on a mass scale. UCLA's Center for Scalable and Integrated Nanomanufacturing (SINAM) is bridging the gap between scientific research and economically feasible manufacturing solutions.
SINAM researchers will combine fundamental science and nanomanufacturing technology in new ways, transforming laboratory science into industrial applications in nanoelectronics and biomedicine. A multidisciplinary team of researchers will devise commercial nanomanufacturing tool designs and build them into systems that will enable cost-effective nanomanufacturing. A better understanding of the nano world will lead to more powerful microscopes, groundbreaking nanofabrication technologies, and exciting new applications in information technology and medicine.
Flight Systems Research Center
A.V. Balakrishnan (Electrical Engineering), Director; http://fsrc.ee.ucla.edu
The Flight Systems Research Center, established in 1985 under a Memorandum-of-Agreement with the NASA Ames/Dryden Flight Research Facility, is devoted to interdisciplinary research in flight systems and related technologies. Faculty from the Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Departments are currently associated with the center. Current research projects include:
Functional Engineered Nano Architectonics Focus Center
Microelectronic Advanced Research Corporation Focus Center
Kang L. Wang (Electrical Engineering), Director; Bruce Dunn (Materials Science and Engineering), Co-Director; http://www.fena.org
Dramatic advances in nanotechnology, molecular electronics, and quantum computing are creating the potential for significant expansion of current semiconductor technologies. Researchers at UCLA will make pioneering contributions to these fields through the Functional Engineered Nano Architectonics Focus Center (FENA) funded by the Semiconductor Research Association and the Department of Defense.
The term "architectonics" is derived from a Greek word meaning master builder--an apt description of the center's researchers as they build a new generation of nano-scale materials, structures, and devices for the electronics industry.
The FENA team will explore the challenges facing the semiconductor industry as the electronic devices and circuits that power today's computers grow ever smaller. With more and more transistors and other components squeezed onto a single chip, manufacturers are rapidly approaching the physical limits posed by current chip-making processes. Researchers seek to resolve a number of issues related to post-CMOS technologies that will allow them to extend semiconductor technology further into the realm of the nanoscale.
Institute for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration
A NASA University Research, Engineering, and Technology Institute
Chih-Ming Ho (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering), Director; http://www.cmise.ucla.edu
The Institute for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration (CMISE) is realizing a unique approach by fusing biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information science to enrich the development of revolutionary application-specific technologies. For example, a cell fuses genetic processes with nanoscale sensors and actuators to result in an efficient, autonomous micro "factory." The basic processes that occur at the molecular level have opened up a world where the integration of individual components can eventually derive higher-order functionalities or emergent properties.
The fusion of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and informatics will culminate in systemic architectures that will rival those that have taken millions of years to come to fruition in nature. CMISE researchers also hope to achieve a fundamental comprehension of how the interplay of these three areas can be manipulated on the molecular level to produce enhanced, emergent properties.
CMISE is organized into four interdisciplinary research groups: energetics, metabolics, systematics, and CMISESat. The energetics group harnesses and transforms energy across a range of disciplines, while the metabolics team develops nano/micro systems for single-cell metabolism study and network reconstruction of radiation damage to cells. The systematics group enables intelligent cell mimetic systems, and monitors and controls artificial and biological subsystems. The CMISESat team provides the space testbed environment for validation and demonstration of emerging CMISE technologies.
Western Institute of Nanoelectronics
A Nanoelectronics Research Initiative National Institute of Excellence
Kang L. Wang (Electrical Engineering), Director; http://win-nano.org
The Western Institute of Nanoelectronics (WIN), one of the world's largest joint research programs focusing on spintronics, brings together nearly 30 eminent researchers to explore critically-needed innovations in semiconductor technology.
A National Institute of Excellence, WIN leverages what are considered the best interdisciplinary nanoelectronics talents in the world to explore and develop advanced research devices, circuits, and nanosystems with performance beyond conventional CMOS devices. The pioneering new technology of spintronics relies on the spin of an electron to carry information, and holds promise in minimizing power consumption for next-generation electronics.
As rapid progress in the miniaturization of semiconductor electronic devices leads toward chip features smaller than 100 nanometers in size, researchers have had to begin exploring new ways to make electronics more efficient. Today's devices, based on CMOS standards, cannot get much smaller and still function effectively.
Information-processing technology has so far relied on charge-based devices, ranging from vacuum tubes to million-transistor microchips. Conventional electronic devices simply move these electric charges around, ignoring the spin on each electron. Spintronics aims to put that extra spin action to work--effectively corralling electrons into one smooth chain of motion.