CORRECTION: This story has been updated to indicate the Baltimore bridge collapse happened in March. (July 8, 2024)

SAN DIEGO — Researchers in Southern California are trying to create futuristic materials that can heal themselves and even sense danger.


What You Need To Know

  • Researchers are trying to design and create next-generation materials inspired and empowered by biological cells

  • Rae Robertson-Anderson, Ph.D, is a professor of physics and biophysics at the University of San Diego leading a team of researchers

  • They hope to develop materials that can self-heal things like potholes or cracks in buildings

  • Their research could also pave the way for breakthroughs in wound healing and dynamic prosthetics

Something as simple as cornstarch and water illustrate how a material can change, explained Rae Robertson-Anderson, Ph.D.

“If you put your hand in real slowly, it feels just like a fluid," she said. "And then if I try to take it out really quickly, it tenses up.”

Robertson-Anderson is a professor of physics and biophysics at the University of San Diego. She is leading a team of researchers trying to develop self-healing materials inspired by biology: materials that can self-heal things like potholes or cracks in buildings.

They hope their materials in the future could even prevent deaths like the Baltimore bridge collapse in March that killed six workers who were repairing potholes on it.

“You would have materials that could provide much more give during a collision but then still be able to bounce back or reform,” Robertson-Anderson said.

Maya Hendija is a physics researcher mixing different kinds of molecular building blocks together to see how they respond and move.

“It’s beautiful and it’s so fascinating and it makes sitting at a microscope way more interesting," Hendija said. “Everything that I do to make this happen is quit simple and everything I add to this is quite simple yet we get such complex motion and complex systems and it’s just super cool.”

They hope to design materials that can sense a crack or fracture and heal itself, but their research could also pave the way for breakthroughs in wound healing and dynamic prosthetics.

“I just think there’s so much potential from a materials perspective for something like that,” Hendija said.  

Robertson-Anderson says their project is pushing the frontier of materials. She is aiming to design a prototype over the next several years that will be able to morph, move and do work without human intervention.

“It’s so fascinating to see what biology can do," she said. "I guess my hope for the future is that we have materials that are sensing and living and responsive.”

The team of researchers were recently awarded a $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation to further this research. Funding for the project begins on Oct. 1.