She harnesses viruses to make things
Manufacturing was once the province of human hands, then of machines. Angela Belcher, professor of materials science and engineering and biological engineering at MIT, has pushed manufacturing in another, much smaller, direction: Her lab has genetically engineered viruses that can construct useful objects like electrodes and wires.
The secret lies in the way organisms construct hard materials like shells and bones. "We're trying to understand how nature makes these hard materials," says Belcher, 39. "And we're applying those processes to materials that nature didn't have the opportunity to work with." Like cobalt oxide or similar compounds that can be used to make components for batteries, touch-screen technology, and semiconductors. "We're only interested in practical applications."
Belcher came up with the premise while working on her PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara, studying the shell of the abalone, a marine snail. "In nature, organisms build hard structures in a nontoxic way," says Belcher. "They generate little waste. But organisms haven't built solar cells, or batteries."
She decided to work with the M13 phage, a long, thin virus that can be engineered to bind to certain types of molecules, including inorganic ones like metals. By selecting the viruses that bound most efficiently to a desired material, Belcher isolated the "stickiest" phages and then dunked them in a metallic solution, coating them with the molecules. The phages then connected and formed longer strands -- effectively making wires, or a thin sheet of film.
Her lab employed this method to form an electrode that can be used in a lithium ion battery like the rechargeable ones used in electronics. The result looks like an innocuous length of celluloid tape, the sort you could use to wrap a package.
"It's self-assembled," says Belcher. "The viruses make these materials at room temperature." So there's little pollution.
Also, the batteries would be light and fitted to almost any shape. Her lab also works with yeasts -- "the same ones that make bread and beer, but we make semiconductors."
A native of San Antonio, Belcher showed an early interest in the sciences and in questions about the origin of life and "space biology." She went to UC Santa Barbara's College of Creative Studies, where she originally considered studying medicine but was seduced by purer science. "I know this sounds cheesy, but I fell in love with molecules."
Even so, she always had an eye for the practical. When her work with abalone shells led to her discoveries with viruses, she cofounded Cambrios, a California-based company that's applying Belcher's crossover between biology and electronics into commercial products.
Her research, she says, is still in the basic science phase, and her company is still working on product development. At MIT, Belcher hopes to be making prototypes within the next two years. "Actual devices are five to 10 years off." Much of her lab's current efforts are focused on producing batteries and fuel cells and on medical applications -- nanodevices that could be used for cancer diagnostics, for example.
Belcher's office is overrun with a jumble of papers, coffee cups, awards (including a Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering), and gear for her 11-month-old son. But its splendid view of MIT's iconic Stata Center is the biggest hint that she's sitting on ground zero of a new industrial revolution.
"New factories will have equipment based on self-assembly," she says. "There will be clean chemistries. Things will continue to get smaller."
Her lab of interdisciplinary inventors will keep pushing towards this future. That's always been Belcher's dream.
"When I was a kid, I thought I would grow up and it would be like 'The Jetsons.' " It may yet.
Home: Lexington.
Family: Husband David Bedinger, who was her childhood sweetheart. Son, Brazos (named after the Texas river), now 11 months old.
Hobbies: There's not much time for hobbies when you're so busy. This month she was named one of this year's Scientific American 50 for making a contribution to her field with "exceptional potential to improve society."
On the dangers of nanotechnology: Belcher agrees that legitimate concerns exist, but she's confident because researchers are already addressing the repercussions. "I don't think humanity has ever had another period where we've invented something and assessed its environmental impact at the same time."
