Graduate Student Seminar

April 19, 2024

10:00 a.m. ET

Doherty Hall 2210

Artificial Intelligence Driven Discovery Connects Scales, Disciplines, and Modalities

For centuries, researchers have sought out ways to connect disparate areas of knowledge. With the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), we can now rigorously explore relationships that cut across distinct areas – such as, mechanics and biology, or science and art – to foster discovery, understanding and innovation. Our AI algorithms blur the boundary between physics-based and data-driven modeling through integrated physics-inspired multimodal graph-based generative AI models, set forth in a hierarchical multi-agent mixture-of-experts framework. The design of these models follows a biologically inspired approach where we endow AI systems with the capability to reason about their own structure and to dynamically rearrange themselves to improve their utility to solve certain tasks, thereby implementing a manifestation of the universality-diversity- principle seen in biological materials. This new generation of models is applied to the analysis and design of materials, specifically to understand, discover, mimic and improve upon biological materials design principles. Applied specifically to protein engineering, the talk will cover case studies covering distinct scales, from silk, to collagen, to biomineralized materials, as well as applications to medicine, food and agriculture where materials design is critical to achieve performance targets. A discussion of future challenges and opportunities will be provided.

Markus J. Buehler, McAfee Professor of Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

0419-buehler.jpgProfessor Buehler pursues new modeling, design and manufacturing approaches for advanced biomaterials that offer greater resilience and a wide range of controllable properties from the nano- to the macroscale. He received many distinguished awards, including the Feynman Prize, the ASME Drucker Medal, the J.R. Rice Medal, and many others. Buehler is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.  

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