Enabling a sustainable, functional and resource-efficient next generation of materials by uncovering the physical mechanisms underlying the behavior of soft and biological matter. 

Materials you can trust with your life

We study the fundamental processes that organize the assembly, the structure and the mechanical properties of biological and other soft materials. Fundamental and applied research reinforce each other: We figure out how these materials work, and use these insights to develop bio-inspired design strategies to improve and disrupt the development of man-made materials.

6 PIs within SMB address this challenge from complementary angles and backgrounds. Together, we cover the full spectrum of length and time scales, from atom to organism. We develop and use a broad range of analytic and numerical tools: statistical mechanical calculations both in and out of equilibrium, and simulations using e.g. Molecular Dynamics, Monte Carlo, Lattice Boltzmann, and energy landscape techniques.