By mimicking the remarkable self-organizing capabilities of the biological system, researchers hope to create the next generation of technologies for exploring space.

UCLA is the site of the new NASA-sponsored Institute for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration, which will receive up to $40 million over 10 years. It is one of five University Research, Engineering and Technology Institutes that will be established this year. These new institutes represent NASA’s grand vision for enabling the promise of 21st-century technologies.

Researchers at the institute believe the answers to developing new technologies for the nation’s space program can be found in nature.

“Biological systems have acquired through eons of evolution an amazing ability to manage information on multiple levels — organizing themselves into increasingly complex structures, from tissue to organ to complex human biological systems,� said Chih-Ming Ho, Ben Rich-Lockheed Martin Professor and director of the Institute for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration. “Our strategy is to mimic the cell’s information-processing abilities to establish a model for space system design that will redefine space exploration technology.�

Carlo Montemagno, Roy and Carol Domani Professor and deputy director of the institute, said looking to nature for inspiration makes good sense.

“Biological systems are an ideal place to look at the integrated organization of system functions and information at multiple levels,� he said. “Biological systems are the original nanotechnologists.�

Starting at the single-cell level, biological systems consist of increasingly complex levels of organization. How behavior at one level influences the next, and what information is passed on from level to level, are issues that researchers at the Institute for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration want to examine — and mimic.

All the researchers at the Institute for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration are world-class leaders in their own fields and have track records for turning scientific dreams into realities, Ho said. These researchers will now direct their efforts to recreate this natural self-organization within engineered systems.

The institute brings together scientists from UCLA’s engineering and medical schools, as well as from the physical and life sciences. The California NanoSystems Institute, a joint enterprise of UCLA and UC Santa Barbara, will provide infrastructure to help support the research. The Institute for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration also involves leading researchers from Caltech, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Arizona State University.

The Institute for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration benefits greatly from such a diverse group of participants because it allows them to work in an integrated environment, Montemagno said. “That’s how the world really is, after all,� he said. “Biological systems make no distinctions between chemistry, biology or physics.�