Spring Break
$7.8M awarded to Univ
by Michelle Liberman
Staff writer
News | 9/23/08
Posted online at 4:50 AM EST on 9/23/08
/ Last updated at 3:22 AM EST on 9/23/08
The National Science Foundation awarded Brandeis University a highly competitive $7.8 million grant to establish a Materials Research Science and Engineering Center on Sept. 1.
The center will be collaboration among physicists, biochemists, chemists and biologists who will study the "effects of imposing constraints on [DNA, liquid crystals, colloids and polymers at a molecular scale] … as a guide to engineering semiconductor nanoparticles into shapes and forms suitable for applications such as biosensors and solar cells," according to a press release.
Prof. Robert Meyer (PHYS), the director of the center and the principal investigator for the MRSEC grant said, "Brandeis is really a first-rate place in the scientific world. To me that's one of the very important messages of the grant. We got the grant because of the high-quality of the science department."
Meyer said, "The grant is all about the combination and overlap of physical science with biological science. … We can learn how materials are used in biology. By taking what we learn from these materials, we can better understand the biological processes. When we learn how things work in a biological system, we can try to mimic that for making artificial systems that are similar to the biological systems."
Four out of the 87 universities that applied won $7.8 million grants, and nine out of 13 universities applied through the same process that were awarded a renewal of the grant if they had won the MRSEC grant in previous years.
The process of applying for the grant started over a year ago when schools submitted a pre-proposal, a simpler outline of the detailed proposal according to Meyer, who submitted Brandeis' proposal in October 2007. In January, 36 schools were invited to submit full proposals of their project, and in April, Brandeis and 17 other schools were invited to Washington to present the proposal in front of a panel from the National Science Foundation. Brandeis heard it won the grant in mid-July, but it wasn't officially awarded until Sept. 1.
The center will be collaboration among physicists, biochemists, chemists and biologists who will study the "effects of imposing constraints on [DNA, liquid crystals, colloids and polymers at a molecular scale] … as a guide to engineering semiconductor nanoparticles into shapes and forms suitable for applications such as biosensors and solar cells," according to a press release.
Prof. Robert Meyer (PHYS), the director of the center and the principal investigator for the MRSEC grant said, "Brandeis is really a first-rate place in the scientific world. To me that's one of the very important messages of the grant. We got the grant because of the high-quality of the science department."
Meyer said, "The grant is all about the combination and overlap of physical science with biological science. … We can learn how materials are used in biology. By taking what we learn from these materials, we can better understand the biological processes. When we learn how things work in a biological system, we can try to mimic that for making artificial systems that are similar to the biological systems."
Four out of the 87 universities that applied won $7.8 million grants, and nine out of 13 universities applied through the same process that were awarded a renewal of the grant if they had won the MRSEC grant in previous years.
The process of applying for the grant started over a year ago when schools submitted a pre-proposal, a simpler outline of the detailed proposal according to Meyer, who submitted Brandeis' proposal in October 2007. In January, 36 schools were invited to submit full proposals of their project, and in April, Brandeis and 17 other schools were invited to Washington to present the proposal in front of a panel from the National Science Foundation. Brandeis heard it won the grant in mid-July, but it wasn't officially awarded until Sept. 1.
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