Research

Major osteoarthritis research featured in NY Times

Jeff Zehnder — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 15:16:09 +0000

Major osteoarthritis research featured in NY Times Jeff Zehnder Tue, 04/07/2026 - 09:16

Stephanie Bryant is leading a $33.57 million federal grant to reverse osteoarthritis, and the New York Times is taking notice.

NY Times has published an article on tissue regeneration research being lead by Bryant, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and director of the Materials Science and Engineering Program at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Bryant, an expert in functional tissue engineering and biomaterials, said the goal of the work is “to return the tissue to a healthy state,” with at most one injection.

Her team has identified an existing drug already approved by the Food and Drug Administration and is applying it to treat osteoarthritis. Bryant and her colleagues developed a patented particle delivery system that can be injected into the joint and provide intermittent bursts of the drug for months.

With phase one successfully complete, the team is now advancing to phase two of the research. If successful, human trials would follow.

Read the full article at the New York Times...

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A simple shot shows promise to reverse osteoarthritis within weeks

Jeff Zehnder — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 15:13:02 +0000

A simple shot shows promise to reverse osteoarthritis within weeks Jeff Zehnder Tue, 04/07/2026 - 09:13

A research team including scientists and engineers from University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Anschutz and Colorado State University has developed a suite of new therapies that prompt aging or damaged joints to repair themselves within weeks, according to animal studies.

The new osteoarthritis treatments include a single, regenerative injection to a joint and a biomaterial repair kit that recruits the body’s own cells to patch holes in damaged cartilage.

To expedite the research, the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) announced this week that the multidisciplinary team will advance to the next phase of the up to $33.5 million project. The project is under the ARPA-H Novel Innovations for Tissue Regeneration in Osteoarthritis (NITRO) program. NITRO is led by ARPA-H Program Manager Dr. Ross Uhrich.

“In two years, we were able to go from a moonshot idea to developing these therapies to demonstrating that they reverse osteoarthritis in animals,” said principal investigator Stephanie Bryant, professor of chemical and biological engineering at ��Ƶ. “Our goal is not just to treat pain and halt progression, but to end this disease.”

Stephanie Bryant works with Laurel Stefani, a Biomedical Engineering PhD candidate from Richardson, TX.

Osteoarthritis is the third most common disease in the U.S., impacting roughly one in six people over age 30 worldwide. It causes cartilage, the buffering tissue that keeps bones from grinding together, to decay. Over time, it can damage bone too, reshaping the joint and making movement excruciating.

Patients are generally limited to two options: Treat the pain or replace the joint. There is no cure. To move toward one, the Colorado team is taking two approaches.

The first centers around repurposing an existing drug already approved by the Food and Drug Administration and applying it to treat osteoarthritis. Bryant, a materials scientist, and her colleagues developed a patented particle delivery system that can be injected into the joint and provide intermittent bursts of the drug for months.

For those with significant lesions in cartilage or bone, the team also developed a cocktail of engineered proteins that can be injected arthroscopically and cured into place, where it recruits the body’s own progenitor cells to patch the gap.

When the team used the injection to treat animals with arthritic joints and injuries, the joints returned to a healthy state within four to eight weeks. When they patched holes in bone or cartilage, they saw “full regeneration and repair of the defect,” said Bryant. In human cells derived from patients undergoing joint replacements, the therapies had a clear regenerative effect.

NITRO was the inaugural program of ARPA-H, created to develop “minimally invasive therapeutics that fully regenerate damaged joints.” Two years ago, NITRO awarded the Colorado team up to $33.5 million, contingent on positive results, to pursue this goal.

With phase one successfully complete, the team is now advancing to phase two.

“It’s super exciting to be a part of the very first program of ARPA-H and to be one of the first teams to advance to the second phase,” said Bryant.

Dr. Evalina Burger, professor and chair of the Department of Orthopedics at CU Anschutz, said she has seen osteoarthritis afflict everyone from grandparents who can’t comb their hair without shoulder pain to runners and hockey players who had to give up the sport they love due to knee or back pain.

“At the moment, the options for many patients are either a massive, expensive surgery or nothing. There’s not a lot in between,” said Burger, who has been following the team’s research with interest. “That’s why ARPA-H is so important.”

She and Bryant imagine a day when those in the earlier stages of the disease could access an affordable single-dose therapy to keep their joints healthy for years. Those with injured tissue could have it fixed in a single doctor’s visit with a quick recovery.

The team hopes to publish their animal findings in a peer reviewed journal later this year and has formed a company, Renovare Therapeutics Inc. to move toward commercialization.

If future studies go according to plan, Bryant anticipates clinical trials could be underway in as soon as 18 months.

“This could be a real game-changer for patients,” said Bryant.

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Researchers build ultra-efficient optical sensors shrinking light to a chip

Jeff Zehnder — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 15:56:46 +0000

Researchers build ultra-efficient optical sensors shrinking light to a chip Jeff Zehnder Mon, 02/23/2026 - 08:56

��Ƶ researchers have built high performing optical microresonators opening the door for new sensor technologies.

At its simplest form, a microresonator is a tiny device that can trap light and build up its intensity.

Once the intensity is high enough, researchers can perform unique light operations.

“Our work is about using less optical power with these resonators for future uses,” said Bright Lu, a fourth-year doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering and a lead author on the study. “One day these microresonators can be adapted for a wide range of sensors from navigation to identifying chemicals.”

For this endeavor published in Applied Physics Letters, the team focused on ‘racetrack’ resonators, named for their elongated shape that resembles a running track.

Specifically, researchers used ‘Euler curves’ — a type of smooth curve also found in road and railway design. Just as cars can’t make sharp right-angle turns in motion, light can not be forced into abrupt bends.

“These racetrack curves minimize bending loss,” said Won Park, Sheppard Professor of Electrical Engineering, a co-advisor on the study. “Our design choice was a key innovation of this project.”

By guiding light smoothly through the resonator, they dramatically reduced light loss, allowing photons to circulate longer and interact more strongly inside the device.

If too much light is lost, Lu says, high light intensities can’t be achieved for these microresonators to operate at the needed performance.

Made in Colorado

Incredibly small in size, the microresonators were built using the Colorado Shared Instrumentation in Nanofabrication and Characterization (COSINC) clean room’s new electron beam lithography system.

The facility provides a highly-controlled environment required to work at the microscopic scales that can lead to reliable device performance.

Optical waveguide microresonators on a chip created in this effort, which are ten times thinner than human hair.

Many optical and photonic devices are smaller than the width of a piece of paper, meaning even tiny dust particles or surface imperfections can disrupt how light travels through a material.

“Traditional lithography uses photons and is fundamentally limited by the wavelength of light,” Lu said. “However, electron beam lithography has no such constraint. With electrons, we can realize our structures with sub-nanometer resolution, which is critical for our microresonators.”

For Lu, the hands-on fabrication process was a fulfilling aspect of the project.

“Clean rooms are just cool and you’re working with these massive, precise machines and then you get to see images of structures you made only microns wide. Turning a thin film of glass into a working optical circuit is really satisfying.”

A key success from the work was the ability of the researchers to use chalcogenides, a broad term encompassing a family of specialized semiconductor glasses.

“These chalcogenides are excellent materials for photonics because of their high transparency and nonlinearity,” said Park. “Our work represents one of the best performing devices using chalcogenides, if not the best.”

Chalcogenides were helpful since they have strong transparency for light to pass through the device at high intensities needed for microresonators.

However, the materials are not easy to process for the device, so there’s a balancing act to tread.

“Chalcogenides are difficult, but rewarding materials to operate for photonic nonlinear devices,” said Professor Juilet Gopinath, who has worked on this project with Park for more than ten years. “Our results showed that minimizing the bend loss enables ultra-low loss devices comparable to state-of-the-art in other materials platforms.”

Measuring light at the microscale

Erikson with the optical setup for capturing data measuring absorption and thermal effects.

Once fabricated, the microresonators were handed off for testing, work led by James Erikson, a physics PhD student specializing in laser-based measurements. He carefully aligned lasers with microscopic waveguides, coupling light into and out of the device while monitoring how it behaved inside.

They looked for ‘dips’ within the data in transmitted light that indicate resonance as photons get trapped. By analyzing the shape of those dips, they were able to extract properties like absorption and thermal effects.

“The most obvious indicator of device quality is the shape of the resonances and we want them to be deep and narrow, like a needle piercing through the signal background,” said Erikson. “We’ve been chasing this kind of resonator for a long time, and when we saw the sharp resonances on this new device we knew right away that we’d finally cracked the code.”

Erikson added, to make a good device you need to know how much light will be absorbed versus transmitted. Thermal effects become important when adding laser power as you run the risk of damaging the device.

“The way most materials interact with light also changes depending on the temperature of the material,” said Erikson, “so as a device heats up its properties can change and cause it to work differently.”

In the future, the microresonators could be used for compact microlasers, advanced chemical and biological sensors and even tools for quantum metrology and networking.

“Many photonic components from lasers, modulators and detectors are being developed and microresonators like ours will help tie all of those pieces together,” said Lu. “Eventually, the goal is to build something you could hand to a manufacturer and create hundreds of thousands of them.”

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Wyatt Shields a Gates Grubstake Fund honoree

Jeff Zehnder — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 16:13:51 +0000

Wyatt Shields a Gates Grubstake Fund honoree Jeff Zehnder Mon, 01/26/2026 - 09:13

High-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC) remains the most lethal ovarian cancer subtype. Drugs known as poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitors (PARPi), including olaparib (OLAP), are commonly used as maintenance therapy following response to platinum chemotherapy. Although OLAP provides an increased benefit for BRCA-mutated tumors, it is limited by systemic toxicities and a rare but serious risk of developing blood cancers such as myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myelogenous leukemia. Dr. Wyatt Shields, Assistant Professor in the ��Ƶ Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, in collaboration with Dr. Benjamin Bitler, Associate Professor in the CU Anschutz Division of Reproductive Sciences, and CU PhD student Courtney Bailey, addressed these barriers with a targeted delivery system utilizing a macrophage-bound discoidal particle (“backpack”; Mac-BP). Backpacks are fabricated from a biodegradable polymer that enables controlled drug release. Their discoidal geometry prevents phagocytosis, allowing stable attachment to macrophages and subsequent trafficking and delivery to tumors, thereby reducing undesirable side effects. The Gates Grubstake funding will help support readiness for IND-directed development to enable clinical translation of Mac-BPs.

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Engineers develop real-time membrane imaging for sustainable water filtration

Jeff Zehnder — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 22:34:46 +0000

Engineers develop real-time membrane imaging for sustainable water filtration Jeff Zehnder Tue, 01/06/2026 - 15:34

��Ƶ researchers have introduced a solution to improving the performance of large-scale desalination plants: stimulated Raman scattering (SRS).

Published Dec. 16 in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, the laser-based imaging method allows researchers to observe in real time membrane fouling, a process where unwanted materials such as salts, minerals and microorganisms accumulate on filtration membranes.

Worldwide, 55% of people experience water scarcity at least one month a year and that number is expected to climb to 66% by the end of the century.

Desalination—turning saltwater into fresh water—is critical for communities globally as demand increases.

Modern reverse osmosis (RO) plants make up about 80% of the world’s desalination facilities, placing greater importance on having them run efficiently.

“Reverse osmosis membranes are critical for desalination,” said Juliet Gopinath, professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering and physics. “Our work aims to monitor and provide early warning for membrane fouling.”

RO systems rely on thin polymer membranes to filter out buildup.

A set of three real-time, in-situ calcium sulfate crystal scaling images. The growth of three unique crystal morphologies over time emphasizes the importance of having both the image along side the chemical identification that stimulated Raman spectroscopy provides. (Credit: Lange Simmons and Jasmine Andersen)

This accumulation reduces filtration efficiency and increases both energy use and operating costs for desalination plants.

Detecting fouling early remains one of the biggest challenges in desalination.

“We can learn a lot about materials and molecules by shining light on them,” said Postdoctoral Researcher Jasmine Andersen. “Depending on the type of light you use, you’ll get different light coming back, and that tells you what’s inside the material.”

This principle underlies Raman scattering, where the color—or wavelength—of the scattered light shifts in ways that reveal a material’s molecular structure and composition.

The team used SRS to observe crystal growth on RO membranes, tracking how the molecules vibrated revealing the chemical makeup of the material.

To test the system, researchers observed calcium sulfate and calcium bicarbonate, ions commonly found in seawater. SRS provided both high-speed imaging and chemical identification.

“Watching these crystals form as it happens, getting volumetric data and identifying the chemical all at once is pretty exciting,” Andersen said. “Previously, you could get volume data or chemical identification, but not at the same time.”

Andersen notes this level of insight is something industry tools cannot currently provide.

Supporting sustainable water systems

Understanding what forms on a membrane and when can help operators maximize filtration, notes Professor Emeritus Alan Greenberg, an expert in membrane performance and characterization.

“It is well known that RO desalination plants can be more productive and operate at lower cost if fouling is reduced and cleaning is more efficient,” Greenberg said.

Beyond calcium sulfate, the team expects SRS could help study more complex mixtures of organic, inorganic and biological materials that contribute to fouling in both seawater and brackish water systems.

“As our freshwater resources shrink, we’re going to rely more on desalination,” Andersen said. “If we can make that process more efficient and sustainable, we can help ensure people have reliable access to clean water.”

Key collaborators on this project included Victor Bright, professor of mechanical engineering; Y. Lange Simmons physics doctoral graduate; and Mo Zohrabi, senior research scientist. This project received funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, the National Science Foundation and a ��Ƶ Research and Innovation Seed Grant.

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New materials, old physics—the science behind how your winter jacket keeps you warm

Jeff Zehnder — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 15:52:59 +0000

New materials, old physics—the science behind how your winter jacket keeps you warm Jeff Zehnder Mon, 01/05/2026 - 08:52

Winter jackets may seem simple, but sophisticated engineering allows them to keep body heat locked in while staying breathable enough to let out sweat. Read from CU experts Longji Cui and Wan Xiong on The Conversation.

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New window insulation blocks heat, but not your view

Jeff Zehnder — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 19:31:30 +0000

New window insulation blocks heat, but not your view Jeff Zehnder Fri, 12/12/2025 - 12:31

Physicists at ��Ƶ have designed a new material for insulating windows that could improve the energy efficiency of buildings worldwide—and it works a bit like a high-tech version of Bubble Wrap.

The team’s material, called Mesoporous Optically Clear Heat Insulator, or MOCHI, comes in large slabs or thin sheets that can be applied to the inside of any window. So far, the team only makes the material in the lab, and it’s not available for consumers. But the researchers say MOCHI is long-lasting and is almost completely transparent.

That means it won’t disrupt your view, unlike many insulating materials on the market today,

“To block heat exchange, you can put a lot of insulation in your walls, but windows need to be transparent,” said Ivan Smalyukh, senior author of the study and a professor of physics at ��Ƶ. “Finding insulators that are transparent is really challenging.”

He and his colleagues published their results Dec. 11 in the journal “Science.”

Eldho Abraham, left, and Taewoo Lee, right, hold up a thin sheet of MOCHI affixed to clear plastic.(Photo by Glenn J. Asakawa/��Ƶ)

Shakshi Bhardwaj holds up blocks of MOCHI in different sizes. (Credit: Glenn Asakawa/��Ƶ)

From left to right, Eldho Abraham, Gewei (Gary) Chen, Abram Fluckiger, Taewoo Lee, Keita Richardson, Shiva Singh, Shakshi Bhardwaj, Hanqing Zhao, Ivan Smalyukh, and Alex Adaka. (Credit: Glenn Asakawa/��Ƶ)

Buildings, from single-family homes to office skyscrapers, consume about 40% of all energy generated worldwide. They also leak, losing heat to the outdoors on cold days and absorbing heat when the temperature rises.

Smalyukh and his colleagues aim to slow down that exchange.

The group’s MOCHI material is a silicone gel with a twist: The gel traps air through a network of tiny pores that are many times thinner than the width of a human hair. Those tiny air bubbles are so good at blocking heat that you can use a MOCHI sheet just 5 millimeters thick to hold a flame in the palm of your hand.

“No matter what the temperatures are outside, we want people to be able to have comfortable temperatures inside without having to waste energy,” said Smalyukh, a fellow at the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI) at ��Ƶ.

Bubble magic

Smalyukh said the secret to MOCHI comes down to precisely controlling those pockets of air.
The team’s new invention is similar to aerogels, a class of insulating material that is in widespread use today. (NASA uses aerogels inside its Mars rovers to keep electronics warm).

Like MOCHI, aerogels trap countless pockets of air. But those bubbles tend to be distributed randomly throughout aerogels and often reflect light rather than let it pass through. As a result, these materials often look cloudy, which is why they’re sometimes called “frozen smoke.”

In the new research, Smalyukh and his colleagues wanted to take a different approach to insulation.

To make MOCHI, the group mixes a special type of molecule known as surfactants into a liquid solution. These molecules natural clump together to form thin threads in a process not unlike how oil and vinegar separate in salad dressing. Next, molecules of silicone in the same solution begin to stick to the outside of those threads.

Through a series of steps, the researchers then replace the clumps of detergent molecules with air. That leaves silicone surrounding a network of incredibly small pipes filled with air, which Smalyukh compares to a “plumber’s nightmare.”

In all, air makes up more than 90% of the volume of the MOCHI material.

Trapping heat

Smalyukh said that heat passes through a gas in a process something like a game of pool: Heat energizes molecules and atoms in the gas, which then bang into other molecules and atoms, transferring the energy.

The bubbles in MOCHI material are so small, however, that the gases inside can’t bang into each other, effectively keeping heat from flowing through.

“The molecules don’t have a chance to collide freely with each other and exchange energy,” Smalyukh said. “Instead, they bump into the walls of the pores.”

At the same time, the MOCHI material only reflects about .2% of incoming light.

The researchers see a lot of uses for this clear-but-insulating material. Engineers could design a device that uses MOCHI to trap the heat from sunlight, converting it into cheap and sustainable energy.

“Even when it’s a somewhat cloudy day, you could still harness a lot of energy and then use it to heat your water and your building interior,” Smalyukh said.

You probably won’t see these products on the market soon. Currently, the team relies on a time-intensive process to produce MOCHI in the lab. But Smalyukh believes the manufacturing process can be streamlined. The ingredients his team uses to make MOCHI are also relatively inexpensive, which the physicist said bodes well for turning this material into a commercial product.

For now, the future for MOCHI, like the view through a window coated in this insulating material, looks bright.

Co-authors of the new study include Amit Bhardwaj, Blaise Fleury, Eldo Abraham and Taewoo Lee, postdoctoral research associates in the Department of Physics at ��Ƶ. Bohdan Senyuk, Jan Bart ten Hove and Vladyslav Cherpak, former postdoctoral researchers at ��Ƶ, also served as co-authors.

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A better band-aid: New 'suspended animation' technology could revolutionize wound care

Jeff Zehnder — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 18:43:52 +0000

A better band-aid: New 'suspended animation' technology could revolutionize wound care Jeff Zehnder Fri, 10/10/2025 - 12:43

Burn your hand on a hot stove and, almost instantly, immune cells within the wound begin producing inflammatory compounds to help clear out dead tissue and fight off infection. In most cases, the swelling abates quickly, and the wound heals within days.

But for the 600,000 or so people in the United States who suffer serious burns each year, the immune response itself can cause problems, with prolonged inflammation tearing through surrounding tissue and increasing risk of scarring, disfigurement and disability.

A team of ��Ƶ scientists hopes to minimize such long-term damage by suspending that cellular immune response until the body, or care providers, are better equipped to deal with it.

Funded by a new up-to-$5.8 million, two-year contract from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), the project could lead to new treatments for a host of serious tissue injuries, from battlefield blast wounds to frostbite and diabetic ulcers. It could be particularly useful for those without immediate access to care.

“The ultimate goal is to help patients have less pain, faster healing and less systemic damage,” said Christopher Bowman, professor of chemical and biological engineering and co-principal investigator on the project. “It could also save lives.”

Suspended animation for cells

The new “Tissue Preservation Under Stress” (TPS) project grew out of a years-long ��Ƶ effort, funded by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to develop novel ways to keep battlefield injuries from worsening as soldiers awaited transport.

An AI rendering of a tardigrade, or 'water bear.' The microscopic animal goes into 'biostasis' to survive extreme temperatures, and served as inspiration for a new wound care technology. Credit: Adobe stock

Since 2018, the CU team has centered their research around a seemingly sci-fi process called “biostasis,” in which certain organisms temporarily shut down cellular processes to survive harsh conditions. For instance, in extremely cold temperatures, a microanimal called a tardigrade, a.k.a. water bear, slows its cellular function to a stand-still. When temperatures warm, the cells awaken from hibernation.

“The big picture idea was that you could possibly put injured tissue in biostasis until transport to a medical facility could occur,” explained Kristi Anseth, professor of chemical and biological engineering and co-principal investigator on the TPS project.

To induce biostasis in mammalian cells, Bowman, and a multidisciplinary team from CU’s BioFrontiers Institute, developed a specialized hydrogel—essentially a biodegradable 3D plastic— which, upon entering cells, spreads out like a net to stop proteins, enzymes and other molecules inside from moving around.

“It’s like freezing without the ice,” said Senior Research Associate Benjamin Fairbanks, who has been working on the technology for years. “It is a completely different way of addressing the problem,” of serious wounds.

Once light is shined on the cells, the hydrogel degrades and normal cellular activity resumes, according to a paper published in the journal Advanced Materials in 2022.

Subsequent studies on simulated skin in the lab show that when the hydrogel material is applied, healing stalls, and once the polymer degrades, healing resumes.
Pilot studies in animals have also shown promise.

“You basically protect the tissue from its own responses until the initial trauma passes and then bring the cells back to full activity,” said Bowman.

A smarter band-aid

Christopher Bowman, research assistant Maria Lemon, seated, senior research associate Ben Fairbanks, in background, and doctoral candidate Jessica Stelzel. (Photo by Glenn J. Asakawa/University of Colorado)

ARPA-H was founded in 2022 with a mission to fast-track “high-impact solutions to society’s most challenging health problems.”

In its announcement about the new TPS contract, the agency named traumatic tissue injuries among those major challenges.

“Despite advancement in wound care, millions of Americans lack immediate access to specialized medical facilities, increasing the risk of chronic wounds or death.”

Studies show burns account for as many as 20% of battlefield injuries too, with most caused by blasts from explosive devices. In those cases, prolonged inflammation can make it hard to preserve limbs. Biostasis could potentially make it easier, suspects Bowman.

More research is necessary before the technology is ready for use in people, but the potential applications are broad.

Anseth and Bowman envision a day when hydrogel-infused bandages could be used by soldiers in the field, carried on mountaineering expeditions (where frostbite is common), or used in remote health clinics, where resources for treating serious burns or wounds are limited and patients must often be transported.

It may also have applications in cancer treatment someday, to minimize the impact of burns from radiation therapy.

The new infusion of federal dollars could make these possibilities come sooner.

“What’s really special about this funding is that it bridges the gap between fundamental science and clinical application and it makes you think big,” said Anseth. “It’s exciting to be a part of that.”

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New quantum physics and AI-powered microchip design software awarded grants

Jeff Zehnder — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 19:33:26 +0000

New quantum physics and AI-powered microchip design software awarded grants Jeff Zehnder Thu, 07/24/2025 - 13:33

Semiconductors—substances that can selectively conduct or block electricity—have been dubbed the “brains of modern electronics.” They form the building blocks of the chips that power electronic devices from laptops to smartphones and tablets to sports watches.

But semiconductors generate heat when they’re working, and they can easily get too hot, which hurts their performance and can damage them. While smaller chips are denser and more efficient at processing, they are harder to keep cool because of their size.

Sanghamitra Neogi, an associate professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences department, is exploring ways to protect semiconductors and microchips from heat damage. She specializes in nanoscale semiconductors, which are so tiny their parts are measured in nanometers (billionths of a meter).

Sanghamitra Neogi speaks about her startup, AtomTCAD Inc., at ��Ƶ's Ascent Deep Tech Community Showcase on June 25, 2025. (Credit: Casey Cass/��Ƶ)

Neogi and her research group, CUANTAM Laboratory, have developed a sophisticated software called AtomThermCAD that can predict how the materials in a microchip generate and respond to heat, which determines whether the chip will ultimately fail from overheating. AtomThermCAD is short for Atom-to-Device Thermal Computer Aided Design software for nanometer-scale semiconductor devices. The research behind this software was primarily supported by a $1 million DARPA MTO Thermonat grant awarded between 2023 and 2025.

Earlier this year, Neogi launched a startup to bring the software to market for semiconductor manufacturers and other customers. To kickstart her new company, AtomTCAD Inc., Neogi received $150,000 in recent grant funding from the state’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade, or OEDIT, matched by another $50,000 from Venture Partners at ��Ƶ, which helps CU faculty and researchers turn their discoveries into startups and partnerships through funding and entrepreneurial support.

The grant from OEDIT was an advanced industries proof-of-concept grant for researchers in advanced industries. Managed by OEDIT’s Global Business Development division, this funding is intended to accelerate innovation, promote public-private partnerships and encourage commercialization of products and services to strengthen Colorado’s economy.

OEDIT Executive Director Eve Lieberman said that Neogi’s work will benefit the entire semiconductor industry, a rapidly growing segment of Colorado’s economy.

“Dr. Neogi’s research addresses one of the industry’s toughest challenges by improving heat management at the nanoscale, which boosts chip performance and supports the growth of Colorado’s advanced technology sector,” Lieberman said.

Chip designers use software like Neogi’s to test their designs without needing to actually build the chips. But unlike most chip design software, AtomThermCAD uses AI-accelerated quantum physics calculations to model the semiconductors and their components at an atomic level so it can accurately predict whether semiconductors or transistors too small to be seen by the naked eye will overheat.

The software could accelerate technological advancement by saving chip designers months, if not years, of time they previously had to spend developing and testing their designs.

Neogi drew on her expertise in physics and quantum technology to develop the software. She said as microchip components get smaller and smaller, approaching the level of individual atoms, researchers need to look to quantum physics to understand how the components behave.

Neogi also feels her approach could have applications beyond microchip development.

“What we developed is a method where you can model the thermal phenomena of any kind of nanoscale tech device,” she said. “Beyond microchips, it could be nanoscale medical devices and implants inside your body, or even drug delivery systems.”

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Faster, cleaner, better: revolutionary water treatment

Jeff Zehnder — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 19:50:56 +0000

Faster, cleaner, better: revolutionary water treatment Jeff Zehnder Thu, 07/17/2025 - 13:50

Jeff Zehnder

Anthony Straub is making revolutionary advances in water purification for life on Earth and in space.

Using nanoscale membranes—thinner than 1/100th the width of a human hair—Straub has developed a technology that could significantly improve conventional water treatment, microchip production, and desalination.

His efforts are receiving major recognition from the National Science Foundation, which is honoring Straub with a CAREER Award, a five-year, $550,000 grant to advance his research.

“We’re excited about this work,” said Straub, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. “For desalination, switching to these membranes could produce 50 times cleaner water while lasting much longer. It’s really a big deal.”

Membrane technology has been in use for water purification for over five decades. It works well for many applications, but filter degradation is a problem, and even at peak conditions, some contaminants can still pass through the membranes.

“Current membranes are very hard to clean,” Straub said. “A major advance of this new membrane is you can expose it to concentrated bleach and cleaning chemicals. It also removes almost every impurity from water – salts, dissolved metals, and organic contaminants like hormones, PFAS, and pharmaceuticals.”

In the new process, Straub traps a tiny layer of air inside a porous membrane. Using pressure, water is forced against the membrane until it evaporates and recondenses on the other side of the air layer. The technology requires no additional electricity or heat and operates with pumps already used in water systems.

“It’s reimagining distillation. Thermal distillation – essentially boiling water – has been used to purify water for centuries, but it is really energy intensive. We’re laying the groundwork for distillation with pressure as the driving force, and it is 10 times more energy efficient,” Straub said.

The technology has advanced beyond the initial research phase. Straub has conducted successful small-scale tests and has two provisional patents on the design. Last year, he co-founded a spinoff company and received a grant from NASA for a prototype purification system for astronauts to use on a future Moon base.

Design of ultrathin air-trapping membranes for pressure-driven vapor transport. For more details, read "Pressure-driven distillation using air-trapping membranes for fast and selective water purification" in the journal Science Advances.

“There were papers discussing this process; the theoretical foundations were there. Our major advance was demonstrating it successfully. We had to understand how to develop materials with really small pore sizes that can trap air,” Straub said.

A major focus of the future work will be better analysis and modeling of the process.

“This technology is transitioning to applied use, but some aspects of the process aren’t as well understood. That’s very important for end users, to know how this design works, how the transport happens. We have some models, but they’re for very idealized systems, which isn’t how things work in the real world,” he said.

Beyond traditional water treatment, the process has drawn significant interest from microchip producers. Semiconductor wafers are manufactured in clean rooms, and ultrapure water is needed to rinse wafers and wash away residue produced during chip etching.

Even the tiniest water impurities can damage the chips, so water must be purified to levels far beyond what is needed for regular drinking water, requiring an expensive, elaborate system. Straub’s technology would dramatically simplify the process and lower costs.

“This is a huge potential market. Companies currently use a treatment process involving at least 14 different steps, and they avoid shutting down the machines because they’re worried that particles could enter the production line,” he said.

In addition to advancing research, Straub is also developing an education and outreach component as part of the CAREER award. Collaborating with a faculty colleague in the mechanical engineering department, Daniel Knight, the pair are developing a project-based water treatment course that will be used in rural K-12 schools across Colorado.

“Lots of these schools are in areas where they don’t have enough water, so this is really important,” Straub said.

He hopes the outreach will be both educational and promote career opportunities for the next generation of water engineers.

“My parents grew up in Latin America in underserved areas,” he said. “In undergrad, I was drawn to improve water treatment in low resource settings, and I caught the research bug. I want to encourage other people, too. It’s about making the world a better place.”

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