Josh Van Zak jjv30@cam.ac.uk
USA
Chemistry, Girton College
PhD thesis: Immunogenic Building Materials Based on Cucurbituril-mediated Host-guest Recognition and Response
Research interests
1. Intelligent materials
2. Cell-free systems
3. Molecular recognition
4. The exposome
My PhD research is focused on engineering building materials that sense, remember, and kill pathogens, while preserving those microbes that improve or have no effect on our health. We get sick when we are exposed to living and non-living material that makes us sick. This happens over various timescales and a range of magnitudes. At the same time, such exposure entrains our immune systems to fight future insults. I am interested in studying and engineering our exposomes using genetically and chemically encoded building materials that can selectively support, remember, learn from, and/or eradicate the microscopic world inside our buildings. Doing so may mitigate the spread of infectious diseases through public and private spaces, and even prevent future pandemics.
Who or what inspired you to pursue your research interests?
I was inspired to pursue my research interests after working for professors who studied the history of how environments shape our brains and bodies, and vice versa. Ultimately, I ended up integrating immunology, synthetic biology, and materials science in order to create adaptive, preventative methods of engineering the built environment to improve our mental and physical health, and also mediate our likelihood of infecting others.