When compared under a microscope, a piece of glass and a cup of water look surprisingly similar; the molecules are randomly organized. So why doesn’t glass flow like a liquid? Dr. Thomas Truskett, the Les and Sherri Stuewer Endowed Professor and Department Chair of the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, is interested in understanding and controlling how liquids behave. His goal is to use this knowledge to, e.g., develop new materials with unusual and useful properties or new methods to for delivering protein therapeutics in dosages that only require a single shot per day. If successful, the latter could be used to help treat a wide range of diseases, from allergies and autoimmune disorders to cancer, without harmful side effects.

Dr. Truskett’s work has demonstrated how molecular scale theory and computation can help accelerate the discovery of novel materials for technological applications and provide a basis for understanding their properties. He and his team have distinguished themselves by revealing how theoretical results on seemingly simple, but carefully chosen, model systems can produce a road-map for experimental collaborators to discover, understand, and develop materials for new approaches or inventions. Their models provide stringent tests for prevailing ideas on the mechanisms controlling the structure and dynamics of the condensed matter systems they study. A long-term aim of Dr. Truskett’s research is to help solve problems that could lead to entirely new materials that improve human health and quality of life.

Current research includes:

• Protein Therapeutics: Protein therapeutics represent one of the most promising classes of drugs for a wide range of diseases, from allergies and autoimmune disorders to cancer. However, currently there is not a good strategy for creating low-viscosity (freely flowing) liquid forms of these therapeutics in their biologically functional form with doses high enough for single-shot injections, similar to insulin shots for diabetics. Dr. Truskett’s theoretical models of these systems have helped develop -- in collaboration with experimentalists in protein engineering and colloid science -- novel strategies for creating high-dosage, low-viscosity liquid forms of therapeutic proteins appropriate for single-shot injections.

• Novel Technology: In collaboration with experimentalists in biomedical engineering and colloid/interface science, for biomedical imaging and therapy, Dr. Truskett uses molecular theory and simulation to design gold nanoclusters with characteristics that will help target specific cells and provide strong contrast with blood and tissue for noninvasive imaging. Such clusters are unique in that they are composed of small gold particles held together via a biodegradable polymer. Over time, as the polymer degrades in the endosomal environment of the cells, the clusters fall apart to pieces small enough to be safely cleared from the body via the kidney.

• Fundamental Studies: Dr. Truskett’s fundamental work has far reaching impact. For example, they have developed theoretical frameworks for predicting which types of interactions can lead to materials with specific microstructures and properties, understanding how the properties of fluids change with modifications to their environment, interpreting scattering experiments, and exploring the role of structural disorder in fluid, glassy, and jammed states of matter, as well as many others.