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Trainee Joint Collaboration on an Antimicrobial Membrane

Projects:
Clean Energy for Green Industry at UCLA
Institution:
University of California at Los Angeles
Primary Strategic Goal:
Discovery: Foster research that will advance the frontiers of knowledge, emphasizing areas of greatest opportunity and potential benefit and establishing the Nation as a global leader in fundamental transformational science and engineering.
Secondary Strategic Goal:
Learning: Build the Nation's research capability through critical investments in advanced instrumentation, facilities, cyber infrastructure, and experimental tools.

Achievement/Results

Clean Energy for Green Industry IGERT at UCLA trainee Benjamin Feinberg (Eric Hoek, advisor) in Civil Engineering and trainee Brian McVerry (Richard Kaner, advisor) in Chemistry & Biochemistry have been collaborating on a joint research project on the “Proposed Synthesis of Self Gel-Inhibiting Polyaniline Derivatives Towards Improved Membrane Performance”. They have developed an antimicrobial membrane, which is truly a breakthrough for salinity gradient power as well as many other applications. They plan to start a small spin-off company based on the intellectual property of this project after more progress is made. Thus far, a patent has been filed.

Address Goals

We encourage trainees from different departments to collaborate together on research projects and through these self-initiated collaborations, the trainees gain critical skills in working with scientists and engineers from other disciplines, developing a viable research proposal, managing the project, and staying within the allocated budget.

Posted By:
Diana Huffaker
Posted:
December 2, 2013