The University of California at Santa Barbara’s (UCSB) Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies (ICB) since 2003 has received over $118 million in funding from the Army to do bio-inspired research. Recently the Army Research Laboratory within their Army research office announced that they are providing an additional $48 million over three years to support research inspired by biological systems.
The funding has enabled UCSB researchers to collaborate with Caltech, and MIT, along with Army researchers and industry laboratories. As part of the contract renewal, some 60 world-class investigators formed teams to explore research in the areas of systems and synthetic biology, control and dynamical systems, biotechnology tools photonic and electronic materials, and cellular structural materials. The researchers are trying to understand how complex biological systems work on a cellular level.
“The ICB research is 20 years ahead of its time and the technological advances made will benefit society in many different ways,” said David Gay, ICB Director of Technology. “Over the past decade, Army funding has produced results in bio-inspired research that has opened doors for applications in biotechnology, sensors, network science, and cognitive neuroscience.”
In doing research on biomedical applications, they have developed a molecular sensor that can detect drug concentration in vivo which could lead to real-time measurement of the dosage and effectiveness of therapeutic drugs.
For more information, email David Gay at david.gay@icb.ucsb.edu.