The research ethos of the CUNY ASRC Nanoscience Initiative is to disregard traditional boundaries between disciplines and put the scientific challenge at the center. Indeed, boundaries are deliberately crossed, explored and combined, allowing for truly innovative advancements in technology. The ASRC building has been designed with precisely this way of working in mind — it provides an open and highly interactive and progressive environment where innovation flourishes.
The Nanoscience Initiative has three focal areas: NanoBio, NanoDevices, and NanoMaterials, although many research groups fall into several or all of these categories.
Braunschweig Lab
Chen’s lab studies active matter in biological systems and replicates these mechanisms for engineering applications. The group pioneers the study of water-responsive materials and evaporation-driven energy harvesting techniques and brings expertise in nanomechanics, hygroscopic biomaterials, nanoconfined water, and dynamic crystals, aiming to translate biological principles into advanced materials and energy technologies.
The DelRe lab uses biological building blocks—or biological principles of nanoconfinement—to design new polymer-based systems with broad potential applications in healthcare, advanced materials, and energy. We focus on three general projects: 1) stabilizing and utilizing proteins in extreme environments; 2) designing and synthesizing sequence-specific polymers in a scalable and tunable way; and 3) controlling how polymers thread through nanopores.
The Ulijn Lab develops programmable molecular materials and systems based on biology’s building blocks. By combining supramolecular chemistry, materials science, and data-driven experimentation, the group studies how simple sequences can encode structure, dynamics, and function in molecular systems. These discoveries enable new adaptive materials and biomolecular technologies with potential applications in medicine, sustainable manufacturing, advanced materials, and energy-related technologies that are explored with collaborators.