The Army Research Office (ARO) has awarded a $50 million contract to a three-university consortium to create the Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies (ICB), a research organization that will focus on creating sensors, electronics, optics, and information-processing systems based on what the army describes as “biologically derived and biologically inspired materials.” The new institute, to be headed by the University of California, Santa Barbara, is intended to “improve dramatically the effectiveness of the army by creating a single conduit for developing, assessing, and adapting new products and new biotechnologies in direct support of the army’s mission,” said Jim Chang, ARO’s director.
In addition to UCSB, the institute will include MIT and Caltech, as well as several industrial partners who will help the university laboratories with new technology development. Daniel Morse, chair of UCSB’s bio-molecular science and engineering program, will direct the ICB.
“Biology uses precise mechanisms to produce exquisitely structured materials,...