The Nature of Dynamical Arrest and Novel Arrested States of Matter

1
The Nature of Dynamical Arrestand Novel Arrested
States of Matter

• The Marie Curie Research/Training Network on
  Dynamical Arrest MRTN-CT-2003-504712
• 15 EU and (2) US Universities
• arrestedmatter.net
• The Post-graduates who did the work
• Paolo De Gregorio (Roma/Oxford/Cornell), Iseult
  Lynch(Lund), Aonghus Lawlor, Phil Bradley,
  Mark Hayes (UCSF), Jennifer McManus(MIT),
  Davide Cellai (Milano), Andrzej Fima (Krakow),
  Paulo Pinto (Oporto), Francesca Terraneo(Milano)
• senior, finishing moved on..
• E. Zaccarelli- gone to Roma and G.Foffi-to
  Lausanne

2
My Guys (about 80 young researchers
benefited) 22 were employed
3
The Overall problem

• Look around you almost nothing you see is a
  simple state of matter
• Gases, Liquids, Crystals Are Simple States of
  Matter (But not very common!)
• Concept of Glass being ubiquitous discription
  of complex states of matter
• New arrested DESIGNER materials
• Biomaterials, sructural materials, composites
  etc.
• ORDERED photonics, nanomaterial devices,
  trans-membrane proteins,arrays for biological
  diagnostics etc
• OPPORTUNITY TO DO FUNDAMENTAL SCIENCE AND THINK
  ABOUT MATERIALS IN A NEW WAY

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MATERIALS Trapped states in DNA composites help
in the synthetic biology project?

• (a) the design and fabrication of biological
  components and systems that do not already exist
  in the natural world and
• (b) the re-design and fabrication of existing
  biological systems.

• DNA-natural lipid-Ca composites could be useful
  in this regard.non-cytotoxic

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Crystal in presence of arrest

• ARRESTThresholdsdifferent types of nucleation
  and slow dynamics.
• crystals nucleation in presence of
  near-arrest/glass, crystal growth, kinetics

F
F C
C
0.41
?
0.44
0.48
0.49
0.55
0.58
for hard spheres
Early expts, still not explained, P. N. Pusey and
W. Van Megen, Nature 320, 340-342 (1986).Chaikin
or Kegel?
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A New Set of Fundamentals? Dynamical
Arrest/Slowing

• Hard stuff!
• normal liquid correlation function decays
  exponentially, density fluctuations decay on
  timescale ?
• near arrest two step decay of correlations
  (beta-in cage, alpha-cage escape)

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NEW Materials SUGGESTED BY THEORY? HARD CORE
Yukawa SHORT RANGE ATTRACTION PROTEINS,
COLLOID-DEPLETION(b30 is decay lengthNARROW
WELL)
Particle fluid (dilute dispersion)
Particle crystal (eg van Blaaderen)
QUENCH FROM FLUID TO ARRESTING AND PHASE
SEPARATING REGION
Metastable glasses (repulsive and gel
Schurtenberger)
Metastable fluid
Arresting and spinodally separating
K. A. Dawson, G. Foffi, M. Fuchs, W. Gotze, F.
Sciortino, M. Sperl, P. Tartaglia, Th. Voigtmann
and E. Zaccarelli, Phys. Rev. E 63, 011401
(2000). G. Foffi et al. Phys. Rev. E, 65,931407
(2002)
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New Rational Materials, Trapped (arrested) from
Kinetic processes in Colloidal Particle with
Short Ranged Attractionss
Eg. Dynamical Arrest Traps novel States with
Medical Relevance
Quench to ARRESTED SPINODAL DECOMPOSING STATE
Fluorescence microscopy images of a smooth
surface (on left) and a structured or porous
surface (on right) prepared from
particles. Allen, LT, Fox EJ, Blute I, Kelly ZD,
Rochev Y, Keenan AK, Dawson KA, Gallagher WM,
Interactions of soft condensed materials with
living cells phenotype/transcriptome
correlations for the hydrophobic effect, Proc
Natl Acad Sci U.S.A., 2003, 100, 6331-6336
)
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Using them! Can we control Cell Phenotype by
Making Right Surface Pattern(shape)?Keep
Chemistry fixed, use the Physical Properties?
.
Cells (Hela cervical epi. Car.) grown on control
(TCP) surface have typical stellate geometry.
One wavelength of surface pattern
A different wavelength of surface pattern
Same chemistry, changing the pore-size and ridge
thickness it is possible to control where cells
grow and what morphology/phenotype they
assume. Doorty KB, Golubeva TA, Gorelov AV,
Rochev YA, Allen LT, Dawson KA, Gallagher WM,
Keenan AK, Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) co-polymer
films as potential vehicles for delivery of an
antimitotic agent to vascular smooth muscle
cells, Cardiovasc Pathol 2003, 12, 105-110
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What Worked Well

• The Marie Curie Program
• Open, flexible, science defined by team
• Young Researchers, well paid, feeling of Team
  across Europe
• The Program Officer(s)
• Open, flexible, dedicated, supportive
• Helpers-Finding ways of solving problems, not
  exacerbating them
• (Probably) The Marie Cure Unit
• The Students/Post-Docs
• Extended Family, Really Warm, close ties across
  whole Network between young people

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What Worked Well

• New Rules on Non-EU allowed spice of US,
  Indian, etc
• The Science this was/is fun
• We were given Freedom to Try hard to
• We had the flexibility to explore avenues as they
  emerged
• Program Officer(s)
• Program Officer(s)etc etc

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What Was Less than Ideal

• Most of the issues that are less than ideal are
  intrinsic to EU processes, and not MC
  itself-Contracts, Legal, Formalities
• Some of the Administration was cumbersome
• Web Reporting (in principle good, but had
  teething problems!)
• Overly Strict Rules of eligibility etc to prevent
  badly lead MCRTNs being exploited against the
  interests of young people(??)
• Mistake (mine) in too Large consortium (at least
  within the framework of the rules)
• Concerting activity and Timing start dates
  inflexible (someone moves, one group doesnt hire
  on time etc)
• Not enough money for Project Manager.HARD!

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What Worked Badly

• Sometime shocking Attitude of Some Universities
• Several Refused to Accept Rules (Even the good
  ones!)
• Allowances He is being paid too much, more than
  me, so I just wont pay it
• Co-ordinator is de facto final port of call for
  young people to get help
• Poor Understanding and co-operation in Audits
• No ones fault (in most cases), new lack of
  experience of new administration
• Misunderstandings about exact Audit Cert etc (!)

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What Matters

• Project Co-Ordinator
• Acts in best interests of Students (without
  offending Partner PIs)
• Project Manager
• Keeps on top of things (!)
• Project Program Officer
• Becomes a Partners in Projects Success