B CUBE - Three Dimensions of Molecular Bioengineering

Nature offers an enormous arsenal of functional systems and properties that could answer a wide range of unmet technological needs. The possibilities now exist to characterize these properties, adapt them to specific needs and so design the materials and technologies of the future. To achieve these goals, it is necessary to combine complementary disciplines such as biology, nanobiotechnology and engineering.

BioProspecting

B CUBE understands BioProspecting to mean exploring natural phenomena that answer unmet technological needs. These phenomena are characterized and catalogued. Establishing such a "Database of Natural Phenomena" needs excellently trained Systematicians, Morphologists and Taxonomists, who select, describe and simultaneously categorize animal or plant species of interest in terms of bionics or biomimetics.
B CUBE exploits diverse networking possibilities with research groups based locally (Department of Biology/Botany at TU Dresden, the Botanical Garden, Zoological Museum Dresden, Zoo Dresden), regionally (Natural History Museums Görlitz, Chemnitz), and nationally and internationally through several existing collaborations with related institutes.

BioNanoTools

Organism properties of interest are characterized and understood at the molecular level in order to apply and adapt them to current and future technological needs. To achieve this, novel bionanotechnological methods are necessary that can characterize the molecular assembly of functionally relevant structures and demonstrate their properties. The continuous improvement and further development of bionanotechnological methods is necessary to process the existing complex tasks seen in nature. These "next generation" bionanotechnological instruments will not only serve to answer current and future questions, but also represent a huge market in themselves in the life sciences, medicine and biotechnology. Moreover, once the function of each molecular structure is fully understood, it can serve as a potential tool to produce and implement such structures in a controlled fashion. The tools of nature can then be made of use, and a continually expanding molecular toolbox is created that can be applied to the fields of biomimetic materials and molecular bioengineering which are the base of B CUBE's concept.

Biomimetic Materials

Characterizing and understanding natural structures and materials on a molecular level offers endless possibilities to create novel technical materials and material compounds based on fundamental building blocks that supersede those found in nature and that exhibit properties that exceed those of conventional technologies. The bottom-up principle is the method of choice because molecular self-assembly processes can be exploited, as can nature's ability to create complex structures at room temperatures and pressures. This type of biomimicry not only takes the end product into account, but also the processes to achieve it, which is of great importance in the light of ever increasing demands for energy and resource efficient processes