Plenary session

Biomaterials and how they will change our lives

V. Prasad Shastri¹ and Robert Langer²

¹ Institute for Macromolecular Chemistry, University of Freiburg, Germany
² Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA

While the explosive growth of plastics ushered in an era of convenience throughout the 20th century, research in biomaterials in the last decade has catalyzed life-altering innovations in health tech. The impact of biomaterials on modern medicine can be traced back to rather modest beginnings in the 1970’s when clinicians and engineers began to piece together a paradigm where polymers emerged as an important component of therapeutic intervention. This led to a frenzy of activity in the late 1990s, pushing the boundary of how materials can be used and leveraged in modern medicine, and cementing their status as a driver of innovation in health technologies. Modern medical technology owes much of its success to the role biomaterials have played in crafting new solutions, imagining new paths to regenerate tissue, to heal ailments, to improve quality of life, and prolong human life. This talk will summarize these early efforts that led to the modern era of materials-driven medicine; new emerging concepts in the highly impactful disciplines of drug delivery and regenerative medicine will be presented, and the materials innovation space will be discussed.

Correlated quantum materials for data storage and artificial intelligence

L. Cario ^1,2

¹ Nantes Université, CNRS, Institut des Matériaux de Nantes Jean Rouxel, IMN, Nantes, France
² Mottronix, 1 rue de la Noë, 44300 Nantes

The microelectronics industry is currently grappling with two critical challenges: the physical limits of downscaling and rising energy consumption. To address these issues, researchers are exploring innovative approaches, including novel materials, new physical principles, and new device architectures. In that framework quantum materials—particularly Mott insulators—have emerged as a promising frontier. A key breakthrough is the discovery that an electric field can destabilize the Mott insulating state, triggering an insulator-to-metal transition known as the Electric Mott Transition (EMT). This phenomenon holds significant potential for microelectronic applications and could pave the way for a new paradigm: Mottronics, a novel electronics based on Mott insulators. This presentation will first review the fundamentals of the Electric Mott Transition and the new functionalities it enables. It will then showcase practical examples of Mottronic devices, with a focus on applications in data storage and artificial intelligence.