Education

Hometown U: From the chemistry lab come structures that 'build' themselves

How cool would it be if scientists could tinker with a lab recipe and make something grow, right before our eyes. Skip the sperm, the egg, the whole messy complexity of DNA.

Wait -- they can already do that?

The answer is yes. In fact, these chemical gardens have been a staple of science education for 300 years. Only, nobody understood why they worked or how significant they might be. One hundred years ago, French biologist Stephane Leduc flashed on how inorganic structures mimic living things. He even wrote a book about it called "The Mechanism of Life." Other scientists dismissed him.

Not anymore. Now chemists, physicists, biologists and engineers know underwater openings in the Earth's surface, where inorganic minerals meet seawater, are biologically rich and capable of supporting life. These vents also create massive inorganic structures, much like test tube chemical gardens, only writ large. Now the quest is on to thoroughly understand their processes. What if we had recipes to grow structures we need, from tiny biomedical devices within the body to shelters fit for humans?

Thanks to a three-year National Science Foundation grant, a handful of undergraduates and two science professors at UAA have been researching how these chemical gardens grow with absolutely no DNA involved.

They work with simple two-ingredient recipes -- a mineral in a solution -- trying out different compounds and concentrations, and cataloging which lead to what shapes and structural behaviors. Their ongoing plan is to develop theories about this self-construction and discover the laws that govern their growth processes.

They've even collaborated with engineering and technology colleagues from a technical university in Poland, where project co-leader (and Solidarity-era political refugee) Jerzy Maselko was born and earned his doctorate. As this research progressed, undergraduates at both universities -- at the Institute of Physical Chemistry in Wroclaw, Poland, and at UAA -- were positioned to publish scientific papers in chemistry and physics journals, a belt notch usually reserved for graduate school.

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So what does their work look like? Drop a crystal pellet into a solution of sodium silicate and then stand back and watch. Amazing wisps of color form and then spiral out, like so much rust- or maroon-colored smoke. It's both eerie and beautiful.

The most common result is delicate, grass-like tubes that begin to grow, sometimes by the hundreds. Original cells "die off" and new ones develop. A membrane can even burst, creating a whole new spot for growth.

The three leading professors, UAA chemist Maselko, UAA physicist Jim Pantaleone and Polish engineer Piotr Nowak, and their undergraduates, are having a whole lot of fun with this work. Videos on UAA's website offer close-ups of these self-assembling, multi-cellular structures. One two-minute video includes sci-fi music and dramatic movie-style credits that burst across the screen:

The University of Alaska Anchorage

presents a film by

The UAA Chemistry Department

Featuring….

(wait for it...)

Na2Si3O7 and Ca(NO3)2C

(crystal in calcium nitrate)

In…

IS IT ALIVE?

(in blue, quivering font)

Another, called "NaOH Shooter," and again about two minutes long, displays a little black pellet of aluminum chloride, bathed in clear sodium hydroxide. Within seconds, and against a dramatic chorale soundtrack, it flips like a beetle onto its back as "legs" erupt from its body. It's all chemistry, says Jordan Couture, who performed the experiment and filmed it as one of the undergraduate researchers.

Couture, now teaching chemistry labs at UAA and applying for doctoral programs, and colleague Vitaliy Kaminker, now earning a physics doctorate at UAF, were able to publish their findings in scientific journals while still undergraduates, a boon to their academic futures.

"This generally does not happen," said Kaminker, who noted how much he valued being invited to discover new laws of science instead of just replicating experiments from books. Images from his work were so beautiful that editors requested use of them for journal covers.

Maselko has pursued this work his entire academic career, from Poland to Alaska. He already has another grant pending with the National Science Foundation to continue what he and Pantaleone and their undergraduates have begun. His enthusiasm for the work seems boundless.

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"It's the future," he says. "Imagine taking a seed, throwing it into a Jacuzzi, and growing your own TV."

Ponder that.

Kathleen McCoy works at UAA, where she highlights campus life through social and online media.

Kathleen McCoy

Kathleen McCoy was a longtime editor and writer for the Anchorage Daily News.

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