Shaping Tomorrow with Smart and Living Materials

Description

Throughout history, materials have shaped human progress. As we transition into the era of smart, living materials, we are at a change that could redefine construction practices, healthcare tools, and daily life.

Nature has mastered the art of adaptability, producing materials that can dynamically respond to their environment, adjust as needed, and even exhibit self-healing properties. Inspired by nature´s creations, the LIBER Centre of Excellence is pioneering the development of innovative materials that promise to revolutionize industries and improve quality of life. Join us to uncover how research endeavors aim to understand natural behaviors and apply them to future technologies.

Explore the future of materials inspired by nature and dive into the exciting world of life-inspired materials at our upcoming event, part of the "Designs for a Cooler Planet" series.

Event program:

14:00-15:00 Overview of the project and materials:

• 14:00- 14:05 Opening and introduction to LIBER Centre of Excellence (Professor Markus Linder, Director of LIBER CoE)
• 14:05 - 14:20 Introduction to Biodesign and how it benefits from transdisciplinary research (Barbara Pollini, Professor of Biodesign Integration)
• 14:20-14:30 Creating virus-inspired shells of all shapes and sizes with DNA origami (Iris Seitz, Biohybrid Materials Group)
• 14:30-14:40 Nature-inspired anti-fogging surfaces (Mariia Kiseleva, Soft Matter Wetting Group)
• 14:40-14:50 An underwater glue inspired by caddisfly larvae (Ardalan Rahimipour, Cellular Engineering Group)
• 14:50-15:00 Towards computational design of bioinspired materials (Adam Harmat, Soft Materials Modelling Group)

15:00-17:00 Interactive Workshop: Hands-on experiments and demonstrations

Hands-on experiments and demonstrations will let you compare artificial and natural water repellent surfaces, understand how proteins are used as building blocks, artificial spider silk fibers can be pulled, and more…

Period	3 Oct 2025
Event type	Workshop
Location	Espoo, FinlandShow on map
Degree of Recognition	Local