ChEMS Seminar: Creating Functional Biomimetic Materials

Friday, January 30, 2015 - 11:00 p.m. to Saturday, January 31, 2015 - 11:55 p.m.
McDonnell Douglas Engineering Auditorium (MDEA)

Rajesh Naik, Ph.D.

Soft Matter Materials Branch, Materials and Manufacturing Directorate

Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio

The unique and diverse functions of biomaterials provide many opportunities in developing concepts, as well as new classes of materials and devices. The knowledge gained in understanding how biological materials are constructed and function has enabled the design of bioinspired/derived functional materials with tailored properties for optics, sensing, catalysis and electronics. Naik has employed experimental and computational approaches to understand structure-function relationships for the development of biomimetic materials, tailoring interfacial properties features and fabricating functional materials for a variety of applications. In this talk, he will highlight his efforts on using our fundamental understanding of biomolecular interactions, factors that influence bio-nanomaterials interactions and demonstrate the fabrication of biomimetic materials, for sensing, catalysis and decontamination applications.

BIO: Rajesh Naik received his bachelor of science degree in microbiology from the University of Bombay, India, and doctoral degree from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Naik is currently the research team leader for biological materials research in the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Scientifically, Naik has research interests in the area of bionanotechnology and biomimetics with focus on biosensing, bioelectronics, nanostructured materials and protein engineering. He has published over 190 peer-reviewed articles and 11 awarded patents. Rajesh is a  Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). He is also an adjunct professor at Wright State University (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department) and at Georgia Institute of Technology (Department of Materials Science and Engineering).