Jeff Eldredge, Jacob Schmidt
UCLA Engineering Faculty Garner National Science Foundation 2007
Faculty Early Career Development Awards
With prestigious awards from the National Science
Foundation (NSF), two UCLA Engineering faculty members are tackling
issues ranging from the creation of highly sensitive biomolecular
sensors to using the physics behind aquatic movement to inspire
human engineered systems.
The two researchers have earned NSF's 2007 Faculty
Early Career Development (CAREER) award, the NSF's most prestigious
junior faculty award, which recognizes a young researcher's dual
commitment to scholarship and education. Bioengineering professor
Jacob Schmidt’s will investigate “Membrane Platform
Technologies for Channel Protein Science and Sensing.” Mechanical
and aerospace engineering professor Jeff Eldredge will look at
“Numerical Investigations of Biological and Bio-inspired
Locomotion.” Together, the two UCLA Engineering researchers
will garner more than $800,000 in funding, to be awarded over
the next five years.
"We are extraordinarily pleased to have our
exceptional young faculty recognized by the National Science Foundation,"
said Vijay K. Dhir, dean of the School. "We take great pride
in having talented scholars who are conducting research in critical
areas as part of our School."
Schmidt’s work focuses on developing stable
and long-lasting sensors based on measurements of single molecules
of channel proteins. Channel proteins, in their natural form,
inhabit cell membranes in living organisms. The proteins are so
small that sensors employing them can detect the presence of single
molecules bound to them.
But because the membranes housing them are nanometers
in size, they can be fragile and difficult to produce in the laboratory.
Schmidt’s group is focusing on creating new platforms for
the creation and stabilization of these membranes, enabling the
sensor technology. His research may lead to the development of
better ways to screen drugs, detect biomolecules, or rapidly sequence
DNA.
Eldredge’s research investigates how to
observe and understand the fundamental physics of most forms of
biological movement in fluids to construct human engineered systems
that operate with similar functionality.
His work addresses the need for an accurate and
efficient computational tool for simulating flows produced by
bodies with constantly moving and changing surfaces. This tool
will be used to study the role of flexibility in natural forms
of locomotion – such as insect flight and fish swimming.
It is hoped that a better understanding of movement in nature
will lead to energy-efficient vehicles with enhanced maneuvering
capabilities.
The CAREER award also contains a strong education
component. UCLA Engineering students will be able to broaden their
field of study by participating in both of these cutting-edge
interdisciplinary research projects.
The two 2007 CAREER awards follow five awards
garnered by faculty in 2006 – three from the computer science
department, and one each from the chemical and biomolecular engineering
and civil and environmental engineering departments.
To learn more about Jacob Schmidt, visit http://www.bioeng.ucla.edu/facultyresearch/facultyprofiles/schmidt.html.
For more on Jeff Eldredge, visit http://www.mae.ucla.edu/academics/faculty/eldredge.htm.
###
-M.Abraham
03.14.07
|
