Chemical and Biological Engineering
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Nicholas L. Abbott

Nicholas L. Abbott

Nicholas L. Abbott
John T. and Magdalen L. Sobota Professor

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  • Program Affiliations
  • Courses
  • Education
  • Fields of Interest
  • Selected Publications, Awards, and Honors and Research Summary

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    3016 Engineering Hall
    1415 Engineering Drive
    Madison, WI 53706     		Tel: 608/265-5278
    Fax: 608/262-5434
    E-mail: abbott@engr.wisc.edu

    Program Affiliations

    Courses

    Education

    Fields of Interest

    Selected Publications, Awards, and Honors and Research Summary

    Selected Publications

    Selected Awards and Honors

    Research Summary

    The design and engineering of organic interfaces is a critical element of many technologies that are emerging from fundamental advances in the life sciences, nano-scale materials sciences and information sciences. Our research bridges this broad range of disciplines through an interdisciplinary program of fundamental and discovery-oriented research. Our research is focused on the engineering of molecules and their organized assemblies. These molecules can be of biological origin (proteins or DNA) or synthetic (a polymer prepared by using living polymerization). We use statistical thermodynamics and atomistic simulations to understand and guide the design of new molecules. We synthesize new molecules using organic and polymer chemistry, and explore the properties of materials that result from their organization near interfaces. We collaborate extensively with researchers from the life sciences (virology, molecular biochemistry, veterinary medicine) and well as physical sciences (physics and chemistry). Some of our collaborators are located in universities and others are based on industry.

    One part of our research is focused on the development of principles for active control of surfactant systems. Here we are exploring a variety of molecular-level "switches" that permit the properties of solutions of surfactants (detergent-like molecules) solutions to be tuned in situ. We have designed molecular switches that can be triggered by chemical, electrochemical and photophysical processes. Thus we can cycle the properties of surfactant-containing systems and drive spatially localized processes. These capabilities are new, and may find use in biotechnology, micro-scale separations, and novel coating processes. Other aspects of our research are directed towards demonstrations of new methods for the synthesis and processing of ultra-thin polymers at surface. We have demonstrated a new approach to the patterning of polymers on surfaces and to transfer of the patterns into underlying substrates. This work was performed through a collaboration with several polymer chemists at IBM in California.

    A second broad area under investigation in our laboratory deals with the fabrication of surfaces with nanometer-scale topography and well-defined surface chemistry. We are broadly interested in the interactions of biological species (proteins, DNA and viruses) as well as synthetic liquid crystals with these nanostructured surfaces. Liquid crystals, which are complex states of matter that blend properties of crystalline solids and liquids, are ubiquitous in biology and the man-made world (such as computer displays). We seek to understand the fundamental relationship between the nanometer-scale structures of surfaces and the orientations of liquid crystals placed on these surfaces. This problem is a formidable one, largely because the balance of forces that controls the orientations of liquid crystals at surfaces is remarkably precarious. This surface-sensitivity, which has frustrated past attempts to orient liquid crystals in optical devices, can, we believe, be exploited to form the basis of a general methodology to image biological interactions on nanostructured surfaces. We believe these principles might form the basis of immunological assays or methods to screen spatially resolved chemical libraries.

    We have also recently demonstrated that liquid crystals can form the basis of sensors for low molecular weight chemicals such as pesticides. These sensors are compact (about the size of a quarter), do not require electrical power, and might be useful for measurements of personal exposure to chemical environments (e.g., pesticides).

    One of the challenges that unifies the research described above is that of understanding intermolecular forces in systems that contain large interfacial areas. In several of our projects, we are exploring new approaches to the design of intermolecular forces in interfacial systems and well as developing an understanding of the role of intermolecular forces in some classical systems.




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