Dr. Elena Rozhkova of Argonne National Laboratory

The modern era of the Anthropocene is characterized by two phenomena associated with human activity: the depletion of natural resources, along with a strong environmental impact on the one hand and the active development of advanced technologies such as nanotechnology, synthetic biology and artificial life on the other. The interaction of nanotechnologies with the biological sciences is an interdisciplinary field of research that should overcome the emerging problems of civilization, including sustainable energy supply, information storage and the development of medical technologies. Based on powerful chemical synthetic and fabrication approaches and the fusion of synthetic inorganic and soft biological structures, the NanoBio Interfaces field aids to develop advanced hierarchical structures at the atomic and molecular levels, possessing properties far superior to the individual source components. The fusion of inorganic and living matter deepens our fundamental understanding of the material, energy and signal transduction within biological machinery and quantum size effects and their manifestation at nano–biological boundaries, which, in turn, contributes to the translation from pure bio-inspiration - to practical smart divices. This talk will include some recent examples of engineered nature-inspired architectures for applications in green energy, “artificial life” systems as well as in advanced biomedical technologies.

Biography:

Elena A. Rozhkova completed her doctorate in Chemistry at the Lomonosov’s Fine Chemical Technology Institute, Moscow, Russia in 1998. In 2000 she joined the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University, Sendai, as a JSPS postdoctoral fellow, and then in 2002 she accepted Research Staff position at the Chemistry Department of Princeton University and moved to the US. Since 2007 she is a Staff Scientist at the Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM), Argonne National Laboratory. Her research interests include the design and development of functional nano-bio materials using synthesis, microfabrication and synthetic biology approaches for use in clean energy, biology and healthcare. Dr. Rozhkova is a recipient of multiple awards, including Early Career Award from the Russian Academy of Sciences (1997-2000), Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS) fellowship (2000), Brain Research Foundation Fay/Frank Women’s Council Award for “Advanced bio-inorganic materials for targeted thermal & photodynamic glioblastoma multiforme therapies” (2007), the University of Chicago Argonne LLC Board of Governors Distinguished Performance Award and a medal “In recognition of pioneering interdisciplinary cancer treatment research via bio-functionalized vortex structures” (2013), Prof. M. J. Nanjan Fourth Endowment Lecture Award “For outstanding contributions in the field of nano-biotechnology” (2018).