{"id":22150,"date":"2020-04-28T16:14:18","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T16:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/?p=22150"},"modified":"2020-05-11T19:23:23","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T19:23:23","slug":"new-textile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/new-textile\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Kind of Textile"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id='fullscreen_slider_1'  class='avia-fullscreen-slider main_color   avia-builder-el-0  el_before_av_image  avia-builder-el-first   container_wrap sidebar_right' style=' '  ><a href='#next-section' title='' class='scroll-down-link av-control-minimal' aria-hidden='true' data-av_icon='\ue877' data-av_iconfont='entypo-fontello'><\/a><div   data-size='no scaling'  data-lightbox_size='large'  data-animation='slide'  data-conditional_play=''  data-ids='22153'  data-video_counter='0'  data-autoplay='true'  data-bg_slider='true'  data-slide_height='100'  data-handle='av_fullscreen'  data-interval='5'  data-class=' '  data-el_id=''  data-css_id='fullscreen_slider_1'  data-scroll_down='aviaTBscroll_down'  data-control_layout='av-control-minimal'  data-custom_markup=''  data-perma_caption=''  data-autoplay_stopper=''  data-image_attachment='scroll'  data-min_height='0px'  data-stretch=''  class='avia-slideshow avia-slideshow-1 av-slider-scroll-down-active av-control-minimal av-default-height-applied avia-slideshow-no scaling av_fullscreen   avia-slide-slider '  itemprop=\"image\" itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\" ><ul class='avia-slideshow-inner ' style='padding-bottom: 64.3229166667%;' ><li style='background-position:top center;' data-img-url='https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/04\/Rodrigo-Martinez-Duarte_JW1C.jpg' class=' av-single-slide slide-1 ' ><div data-rel='slideshow-1' class='avia-slide-wrap '   ><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><div id='after_full_slider_1'  class='main_color av_default_container_wrap container_wrap sidebar_right' style=' '  ><div class='container' ><div class='template-page content  av-content-small alpha units'><div class='post-entry post-entry-type-page post-entry-22150'><div class='entry-content-wrapper clearfix'>\n<div  class='avia-image-container  av-styling-    avia-builder-el-1  el_after_av_fullscreen  el_before_av_hr  avia-builder-el-first  avia-align-center '  itemprop=\"image\" itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\"  ><div class='avia-image-container-inner'><div class='avia-image-overlay-wrap'><img class='avia_image' src='https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/04\/newtextileHead2-1030x515.png' alt='' title='newtextileHead2' height=\"515\" width=\"1030\"  itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\"  \/><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<div  style='height:25px' class='hr hr-invisible   avia-builder-el-2  el_after_av_image  el_before_av_one_fifth '><span class='hr-inner ' ><span class='hr-inner-style'><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"flex_column av_one_fifth  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-3  el_after_av_hr  el_before_av_three_fifth  \" style='border-radius:0px; '><\/div>\n<div class=\"flex_column av_three_fifth  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding   avia-builder-el-4  el_after_av_one_fifth  el_before_av_one_fifth  \" style='border-radius:0px; '><div   class='hr hr-default   avia-builder-el-5  avia-builder-el-no-sibling '><span class='hr-inner ' ><span class='hr-inner-style'><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"flex_column av_one_fifth  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding   avia-builder-el-6  el_after_av_three_fifth  el_before_av_one_full  \" style='border-radius:0px; '><\/div>\n<div class=\"flex_column av_one_full  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-7  el_after_av_one_fifth  el_before_av_one_fifth  column-top-margin\" style='border-radius:0px; '><section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='avia_textblock  av_inherit_color '  style='font-size:13px; color:#000000; '  itemprop=\"text\" ><p style=\"text-align: center;\">By <b>Clinton Colmenares<\/b><br \/>\nPhotography by \u00a0<b>Josh Wilson<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n<div class=\"flex_column av_one_fifth  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-9  el_after_av_one_full  el_before_av_three_fifth  column-top-margin\" style='border-radius:0px; '><\/div>\n<div class=\"flex_column av_three_fifth  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding   avia-builder-el-10  el_after_av_one_fifth  el_before_av_one_fifth  column-top-margin\" style='border-radius:0px; '><div   class='hr hr-default   avia-builder-el-11  avia-builder-el-no-sibling '><span class='hr-inner ' ><span class='hr-inner-style'><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"flex_column av_one_fifth  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding   avia-builder-el-12  el_after_av_three_fifth  el_before_av_one_full  column-top-margin\" style='border-radius:0px; '><\/div>\n<div class=\"flex_column av_one_full  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-13  el_after_av_one_fifth  el_before_av_one_full  column-top-margin\" style='border-radius:0px; '><section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='avia_textblock  av_inherit_color '  style='font-size:29px; color:#000000; '  itemprop=\"text\" ><p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Rodrigo Martinez-Duarte is using bacteria to create advanced materials<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n<div class=\"flex_column av_one_full  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-15  el_after_av_one_full  el_before_av_one_full  column-top-margin\" style='border-radius:0px; '><section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='avia_textblock  av_inherit_color '  style='font-size:17px; color:#000000; '  itemprop=\"text\" ><p>In his lab at Clemson University, mechanical engineer Rodrigo Martinez-Duarte and his students are coaxing bacteria into weaving materials.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re trying to use bacteria as a factory\u201d says Martinez-Duarte, an associate professor in the College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences.<\/p>\n<p>Not just any factory, but a tiny 3D printers of sorts, weaving cellulose fibers into engineered films with a multitude of potential uses, from sensors to battery capacitors to scaffolding for human tissue. The goal is a cleaner, more sustainable material than those currently made from petroleum, like plastic.<\/p>\n<p>For a university with a rich history in textile engineering, it\u2019s fitting that futuristic bacterial nanoweaving has its roots here. And Martinez-Duarte sees unlimited growth potential with highly customized materials.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce you have full control of the structure, you can start changing the physical and chemical properties of the structure itself,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez-Duarte has already established a name for himself among peers by carving out a niche: he\u2019s a mechanical engineer using electrical engineering techniques on living organisms to make advanced materials.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s pushing things forward and is one of the most promising people in our field,\u201d says Rafael Davalos, a professor of biomedical engineering and mechanics at Virginia Tech.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n<div class=\"flex_column av_one_full  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-17  el_after_av_one_full  el_before_av_fullscreen  avia-builder-el-last  column-top-margin\" style='border-radius:0px; '><section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='avia_textblock  av_inherit_color '  style='font-size:17px; color:#000000; '  itemprop=\"text\" ><p><strong>GO TO THE LIGHT<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In his Multiscale Manufacturing Lab, students feed acetobacter bacteria a steady diet of sugar water. The bacteria \u201ceat\u201d the sugar water and turn it into cellulose, the same stuff found in trees and cotton. Left to its own devices, the byproduct is a mass of fibers that congeals into what\u2019s technically known as a pellicle: a blob that looks like wet bread.<\/p>\n<p>The challenge is transforming the randomly structured blob into something more useful by wrangling the cells into a more regimented formation. First, the cells have to be separated, which, at the moment, can only be done one at a time. Ultimately, Martinez-Duarte wants to move a whole army of cells, each one marching along specific lines \u2014 up, down, over, weaving in and out of each other \u2014 laying down cellulose thread as they go.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s making steady progress by sorting the cells with a technology called light-induced dielectrophoresis, which uses electric fields to exploit the cells\u2019 natural inclination of attraction or repulsion to electric field gradients.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez-Duarte and his team generate these electric field gradients using light patterns created with a light projector coupled to precise optics. Cells respond to such a gradient by moving either toward or away from it. In videos of their work, cells are seen separating from a cluster and following the light, like a cat chasing a laser pointer.<\/p>\n<p>After showing basic movement of the acetobacter bacteria, Martinez-Duarte is now working to implement designed trajectories using fungal cells.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><!-- close content main div --><\/div><\/div><div id='fullscreen_slider_2'  class='avia-fullscreen-slider main_color   avia-builder-el-19  el_after_av_one_full  el_before_av_one_full   slider-not-first container_wrap sidebar_right' style=' '  ><a href='#next-section' title='' class='scroll-down-link av-control-minimal' aria-hidden='true' data-av_icon='\ue877' data-av_iconfont='entypo-fontello'><\/a><div   data-size='no scaling'  data-lightbox_size='large'  data-animation='slide'  data-conditional_play=''  data-ids='22154'  data-video_counter='0'  data-autoplay='true'  data-bg_slider='true'  data-slide_height='100'  data-handle='av_fullscreen'  data-interval='5'  data-class=' '  data-el_id=''  data-css_id='fullscreen_slider_2'  data-scroll_down='aviaTBscroll_down'  data-control_layout='av-control-minimal'  data-custom_markup=''  data-perma_caption=''  data-autoplay_stopper=''  data-image_attachment='scroll'  data-min_height='0px'  data-stretch=''  class='avia-slideshow avia-slideshow-2 av-slider-scroll-down-active av-control-minimal av-default-height-applied avia-slideshow-no scaling av_fullscreen   avia-slide-slider '  itemprop=\"image\" itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\" ><ul class='avia-slideshow-inner ' style='padding-bottom: 64.6666666667%;' ><li style='background-position:center center;' data-img-url='https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/04\/Rodrigo-Martinez-Duarte-lab_024.jpg' class=' av-single-slide slide-1 ' ><div data-rel='slideshow-2' class='avia-slide-wrap '   ><\/div><\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div><div id='after_full_slider_2'  class='main_color av_default_container_wrap container_wrap sidebar_right' style=' '  ><div class='container' ><div class='template-page content  av-content-small alpha units'><div class='post-entry post-entry-type-page post-entry-22150'><div class='entry-content-wrapper clearfix'>\n<div class=\"flex_column av_one_full  flex_column_div av-zero-column-padding first  avia-builder-el-20  el_after_av_fullscreen  el_before_av_hr  avia-builder-el-first  \" style='border-radius:0px; '><section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='avia_textblock  av_inherit_color '  style='font-size:17px; color:#000000; '  itemprop=\"text\" ><p><strong>SORTING CELLS FOR HUMANITY\u2019S SAKE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Martinez-Duarte is standing at the dawn of a new age \u2014 the Age of Nanoweavers. There are objects, devices, structures to be made, and he\u2019s cogitating on how to make their fundamental building blocks in ways never imagined, much less carried out.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the cellulose fiber work, Martinez-Duarte and his students are using similar principles to sort cells for biomedical applications. If they can successfully separate one or two pathogenic cells from blood or urine samples, without expensive and bulky lab equipment, it would not only be an engineering success, but also an economical and humanitarian success.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, he and his students are focusing on sorting the different kinds of Candida that can cause a yeast infection, an increasing problem around the world because the yeast are becoming resistant to current drugs. Using electric fields and microfluidics, Martinez-Duarte and his team are working toward a test that sorts the infecting cells so they can be quickly identified and physicians can target treatments to specific strains. This latest work on Candida comes after work with blood cells, parasites, bacteria and DNA in the last 10 years and in collaboration with multiple groups around the world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor someone who is an engineer doing biomedical work, [Martinez-Duarte\u2019s research] is pretty fantastic,\u201d says Blanca Lapizco-Encinas, a professor of biomedical engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology.<\/p>\n<p>Martinez-Duarte is driven by a desire to make the world a better place. It\u2019s a sense of responsibility that was fostered by his parents while growing up in Sinaloa, Mexico. His father influenced his interest in engineering, and his mother always encouraged him \u201cto persevere towards my goals, to enjoy hard work and always strive for my best work,\u201d he says. These are principles he strives to pass on to his mentees.<\/p>\n<p>There are plenty of technical challenges to overcome before Martinez-Duarte\u2019s work becomes common. The team is learning how to characterize each cell\u2019s electrical signature in order to move them individually. They\u2019re deciding which bacteria to use, what to feed it and the conditions under which the cells could produce cellulose with tailored properties. That\u2019s the way science works; questions are asked and answered, examined, answered again, more questions are asked, ways to test theories are invented. It takes years to build a factory, especially one nobody, except Martinez-Duarte, has ever imagined before.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n<div  style='height:100px' class='hr hr-invisible   avia-builder-el-22  el_after_av_one_full  el_before_av_comments_list '><span class='hr-inner ' ><span class='hr-inner-style'><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div  class='av-buildercomment   '><\/div>\n<div  class='avia-video avia-video-16-9   av-lazyload-immediate  av-lazyload-video-embed  ' style='background-image:url(\"https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/04\/Rodrigo-Martinez-Duarte_JW1C-1030x663.jpg\");'  itemprop=\"video\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\"  data-original_url='https:\/\/vimeo.com\/417233265' ><script type='text\/html' class='av-video-tmpl'><div class='avia-iframe-wrap'><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Rodrigo Martinez-Durate | &quot;A New Kind of Textile&quot; | 2020\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/417233265?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"1500\" height=\"638\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/script><div class='av-click-to-play-overlay'><div class=\"avia_playpause_icon\"><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In his lab at Clemson University, mechanical engineer Rodrigo Martinez-Duarte and his students are coaxing bacteria into weaving materials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":22153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[89],"tags":[221,266],"coauthors":[11],"class_list":["post-22150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-web-only-features","tag-2020-features","tag-textiles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/04\/Rodrigo-Martinez-Duarte_JW1C.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9IEky-5Lg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22150"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=22150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}