Welcome

The Paul Hansma Research Group has been developing Atomic Force Microscopes (AFMs) for almost twenty years. We have focused on developing one particular type of Scanning Probe Microscope, the Atomic Force Microscpe (AFM) for biological applications, because AFMs can image biological samples non-destructively in buffers and solutions that mimick physiological conditions, with nanometer resolution.

Through developing AFMs for biological applications, we became involved over fifteen years ago in experimental research in biophysics, making fundamental discoveries on the structure, functions and behavior of proteins, DNA, biological materials such as abalone shell and the natural adhesive secreted by diatoms, and other biological samples. Maintaining dual goals of instrument development and experimental biophysics research is necessary for us to build the best instruments we can for biological research; our AFM builders have direct practical and experimental experience with the AFMs they build. We are also developing a new instrument to measure bone fracture risk in living patients, which we have called the Bone Diagnostic Instrument. The Bone Diagnostic Instrument's development is closely aligned with the performance of its prototypes on cadaveric bone samples – we are conducting extensive testing with each prototype. Branching into biophysical research has also been a natural progression for us given our AFM expertise and the rich interdisciplinary collaborative opportunities with which we have been blessed at UCSB and beyond.

Today, we have two main research divisions - instrumentation development, particularly AFM development, and experimental biophysics, which feeds off our advances in AFM development as it always has in the past. Our instrumentation development research is, in turn, split into branches. Our overall goal is on pushing the capabilities of the AFM to its fundamental limits by developing the fastest and highest imaging-resolution AFMs we can. We believe that the importance of these advances for biomedical science cannot be overstated, particularly for better understanding disease processes, and designing more biocompatible biomimetic materials for implants.

In recent years, our focus in experimental biophysics has been focused on biomaterials research. Our main focus now is on the exploration of molecular origins of fracture resistance in mineralized tissues - primarily human bone – which are largely unknown. We have made a recent discovery in this area – that some noncollagenous bone proteins act as a molecular glue to resist bone fracture, using a fracture-resisting mechanism we have termed the sacrificial bond and hidden length mechanism. We are now working on characterizing this glue, among other research divisions on bone fracture resistance.

This site's design was created by Alex Lau (as Systems Administrator) and its content arranged and written by Simcha Frieda Udwin (as Lab Manager), under the direction of Paul Hansma. Almost all of the images on this site are taken from published or "in press" scientific papers created by our group members; others are from published scientific papers that we reference within the site. Please also note that all papers otherwise cited in this website are papers on which our group members were either primary or co-authors, unless otherwise noted.

We thank you for visiting our site. Please e-mail pati@physics.ucsb.edu if you have any questions or comments on it.