This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The project is a renovation of laboratory space on the 8th floor of Rogers Hall, the main building of the Polytechnic University of New York (NYU-Poly). The renovation will provide a modern chemical synthesis facility comprised of three multi-person labs together with four smaller rooms providing shared research support services.. This will support the research program of the approximately one-year old Institute for Engineered Interfaces (IEI).
The Institute for Engineered Interfaces is an interdisciplinary unit with members from six NYU-Poly departments (Chemical and Biological Sciences, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Physics) and from the New York University Dental and Medical Schools. The design of the laboratory space is intended to promote collaboration between the different researchers. Research areas that will be explored in the renovated facility include: the design of biologically inspired materials and devices, bone growth, inflammation, cell adhesion, bioactive surfaces, biosensors, self-assembled monolayers, nanocomposites, and liposomes.
Within the new renovated shared space, researchers and students from diverse scientific disciplines such as physics, chemistry, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and civil engineering will be able to carry out more complex investigations and interdisciplinary scientific research. Some of the results of the research to be conducted in the renovated labs could lead to improved technologies for medicine. Senior-level undergraduates and graduate students will be involved in research in the Institute, preparing undergraduates for both industrial employment and graduate studies. As part of NYU-Poly's interaction with a number of NYC schools and their science teachers, access to the laboratories will be provided for middle and high-school outreach activities. The renovated facility will also be used to provide high-school teachers with opportunities to participate in research over the summer.
Construction of the Laboratories for the Institute of Engineered Interfaces (IEI) Interfaces are ubiquitous in nature. An interface is created whenever two different materials come in direct contact with one another. The properties of the interface determine to a large extent the properties of how these two different materials stay together (or do not). Interfaces can be tailored (or "engineered") by a variety of physical and chemical methods to selectively enhance or diminish the ability of the two materials to adhere to one another. Efforts to engineer interfaces encompass research from the study of fundamental properties of interfaces at the single molecular level to the development of new applications that rely on the creation of novel large-area interfaces. The Institute for Engineered Interfaces (IEI), anchored at NYU-Poly, with participation from researchers of many other Schools of NYU aims to conduct research and develop educational programs in interface science and engineering. Specifically, the IEI fosters discovery across science, engineering, and medicine frontiers by pursuing the creating of new multi-disciplinary knowledge and translating the breakthroughs into new technologies, devices, and processes. This NSF ARI (Academic Research Infrastructure) award provided funding for the improvement of the research infrastructure at NYU-Poly as it relates to the development of the IEI as a new multi-disciplinary research institute. Specifically, the funding was used to refurbish a suite of old, dilapidated individual laboratories that had suffered from deferred maintenance to create a new state-of-the-art shared research space and facilities. This lab renovation is a critical component in our effort to provide the IEI researchers with access to much needed chemical characterization and synthesis facilities and equipment. The reconfigured space, on the 8th floor of NYU-Poly’s main building, Rogers Hall, encompasses roughly 2,500 square feet for synthesis research and characterization and about 650 square feet for a biology cell culture laboratory suite. The synthesis and characterization lab provides more than 20 new fume hoods and related support facilities. More importantly, the concept of a shared research space promotes the collaborative, multidisciplinary research that is at the core of the IEI. Several NYU-Poly research groups have started to use the new shared facilities on a regular basis. These groups include Prof. Cowman (Cell Culture Suite), whose research focuses on the structure and function of the extracellular polysaccharide hyaluronan, Prof. Montclare (Characterization & Synthesis labs as well as Cell Culture Suite), whose research involves the design, engineering, and of proteins, Prof. Okamoto (Characterization & Synthesis labs), whose research is focused on optical fiber characterization, and Prof. Gupta (Characterization & Synthesis labs), who works on multifunctional micro- and nanocomposites. We expect that other research groups from NYU-Poly as well as from other Schools of NYU will make use of the new facilities soon. The attached five photographs of the new research space show the entrance hallway into the new IEI Lab suite (photo 1). The monitor on the wall displays a continuous slide show depicting results from the ongoing research activities in the IEI Labs for the general public. Additional furnishings to create a communal seating area next to the monitor with a display of research papers and other publications relevant to the research in the IEI Labs is forthcoming. The next two photos (photos 2 and 3) show the inside of the new Characterization and Synthesis Labs. The last two photos (photos 4 and 5) depict respectively the preparation room adjacent to the Characterization and Synthesis lab and the student work area, with work space for the students using the lab facilities just outside the actual lab area.
