Jonathan Dordick

Due to unforseen circumstances, this talk has been canceled. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Nature is unparalleled in its structural and functional diversity. Living organisms make fantastic materials under myriad conditions with properties we cannot emulate today using conventional approaches. In many cases, nature has provided us with a blueprint to design and assemble both natural and synthetic building blocks to create a new generation of functional, organized, and responsive materials. Accordingly, we have taken cues from nature to design materials with unique structural and functional properties, along with new process technologies with the ability to produce a wide range of biomimetic structures.

In this talk, Dr. Dordick will highlight Rensselaer’s recent efforts to exploit the interface of biology with materials science, enhancing protein function along the way. Both fundamental advances and applications will be discussed, the latter focused on composites that endow surfaces with decontaminating properties and nanomaterials with magnetic properties that enhance therapeutic function.

Jonathan Dordick has been the Vice President for Research at Rensselaer since 2013. Before that he was the director of CBIS, the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies. Since 1998 he has been a professor in the department of Chemical Engineering. He is actively pursuing his research in the ares of Biocatalysis in Nonaqueous Media, Combinatorial Biocatalysis, Nanobiotechnology, enzyme technology, and molecular bioprocessing. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has recently been named fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.