Research

New cancer therapy clings to tumors, with inspiration from gecko toes

Susan Glairon — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 17:20:24 +0000

New cancer therapy clings to tumors, with inspiration from gecko toes Susan Glairon Wed, 07/23/2025 - 11:20

Lisa Marshall

A gecko-inspired technology developed by the Shields Lab, in collaboration with doctors at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, uses a specially designed material that adheres to tumors inside the body and steadily releases chemotherapy drugs over several days鈥攑otentially allowing for fewer but longer-lasting therapies.

Off

Traditional

White

Faster, cleaner, better: revolutionary water treatment

Jeff Zehnder — Thu, 17 Jul 2025 19:15:28 +0000

Faster, cleaner, better: revolutionary water treatment Jeff Zehnder Thu, 07/17/2025 - 13:15

Jeff Zehnder

Anthony Straub (r) with PhD student Kian Lopez in a lab.

Anthony Straub is making revolutionary advances in water purification for life on Earth and in space.

Using nanoscale membranes鈥攖hinner than 1/100th the width of a human hair鈥擲traub has developed a technology that could significantly improve conventional water treatment, microchip production, and desalination.

His efforts are receiving major recognition from the National Science Foundation, which is honoring Straub with a CAREER Award, a five-year, $550,000 grant to advance his research.

鈥淲e鈥檙e excited about this work,鈥� said Straub, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering at the 精品SM在线影片. 鈥淔or desalination, switching to these membranes could produce 50 times cleaner water while lasting much longer. It鈥檚 really a big deal.鈥�

Membrane technology has been in use for water purification for over five decades. It works well for many applications, but filter degradation is a problem, and even at peak conditions, some contaminants can still pass through the membranes.

鈥淐urrent membranes are very hard to clean,鈥� Straub said. 鈥淎 major advance of this new membrane is you can expose it to concentrated bleach and cleaning chemicals. It also removes almost every impurity from water 鈥� salts, dissolved metals, and organic contaminants like hormones, PFAS, and pharmaceuticals.鈥�

In the new process, Straub traps a tiny layer of air inside a porous membrane. Using pressure, water is forced against the membrane until it evaporates and recondenses on the other side of the air layer. The technology requires no additional electricity or heat and operates with pumps already used in water systems.

鈥淚t鈥檚 reimagining distillation. Thermal distillation 鈥� essentially boiling water 鈥� has been used to purify water for centuries, but it is really energy intensive. We鈥檙e laying the groundwork for distillation with pressure as the driving force, and it is 10 times more energy efficient,鈥� Straub said.

The technology has advanced beyond the initial research phase. Straub has conducted successful small-scale tests and has two provisional patents on the design. Last year, he co-founded a spinoff company and received a grant from NASA for a prototype purification system for astronauts to use on a future Moon base.

Design of ultrathin air-trapping membranes for pressure-driven vapor transport. For more details, read "Pressure-driven distillation using air-trapping membranes for fast and selective water purification" in the journal Science Advances.

鈥淭here were papers discussing this process; the theoretical foundations were there. Our major advance was demonstrating it successfully. We had to understand how to develop materials with really small pore sizes that can trap air,鈥� Straub said.

A major focus of the future work will be better analysis and modeling of the process.

鈥淭his technology is transitioning to applied use, but some aspects of the process aren鈥檛 as well understood. That鈥檚 very important for end users, to know how this design works, how the transport happens. We have some models, but they鈥檙e for very idealized systems, which isn鈥檛 how things work in the real world,鈥� he said.

Beyond traditional water treatment, the process has drawn significant interest from microchip producers. Semiconductor wafers are manufactured in clean rooms, and ultrapure water is needed to rinse wafers and wash away residue produced during chip etching.

Even the tiniest water impurities can damage the chips, so water must be purified to levels far beyond what is needed for regular drinking water, requiring an expensive, elaborate system. Straub鈥檚 technology would dramatically simplify the process and lower costs.

鈥淭his is a huge potential market. Companies currently use a treatment process involving at least 14 different steps, and they avoid shutting down the machines because they鈥檙e worried that particles could enter the production line,鈥� he said.

In addition to advancing research, Straub is also developing an education and outreach component as part of the CAREER award. Collaborating with a faculty colleague in the mechanical engineering department, Daniel Knight, the pair are developing a project-based water treatment course that will be used in rural K-12 schools across Colorado.

鈥淟ots of these schools are in areas where they don鈥檛 have enough water, so this is really important,鈥� Straub said.

He hopes the outreach will be both educational and promote career opportunities for the next generation of water engineers.

鈥淢y parents grew up in Latin America in underserved areas,鈥� he said. 鈥淚n undergrad, I was drawn to improve water treatment in low resource settings, and I caught the research bug. I want to encourage other people, too. It鈥檚 about making the world a better place.鈥�

Anthony Straub is making revolutionary advances in water purification for life on Earth and in space. Using nanoscale membranes鈥攖hinner than 1/100th the width of a human hair鈥擲traub has developed a...

Off

Traditional

White

Enhancing orbital safety with better space weather predictions

Jeff Zehnder — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 18:40:25 +0000

Enhancing orbital safety with better space weather predictions Jeff Zehnder Fri, 07/11/2025 - 12:40

Jeff Zehnder

Anant Telikicherla is developing new instrumentation for an upcoming sub-orbital rocket flight.

Surrounded by racks of electronics equipment, tools, and pieces of an aluminum rocket body 鈥� the laboratory could be mistaken for a mad scientist鈥檚 lair 鈥� Telikicherla is working on an instrument he hopes can help provide advance warnings for solar flares.

鈥淭hese flares are one of the most powerful explosions in the solar system,鈥� said Telikicherla, a PhD student in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the 精品SM在线影片. 鈥淔lares release an insane amount of energy that can reach Earth in eight minutes and large eruptive flares are often associated with energetic particle events that are a radiation risk to astronauts and can be really damaging to satellites.鈥�

As a student, Telikicherla is co-advised by two leading researchers, Tom Woods, a senior research scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, and Bob Marshall, an associate professor in aerospace.

Flare prediction is an active area of research around the world, and Telikicherla is hopeful the instrument he and Woods have been developing could eventually provide 10-15 minutes advance warning of flares. It is a short period of time, but any additional notice would be beneficial for space weather operations.

The basis of the instrument, called the Solar Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrograph and High Energy Imager (SEUSHI), derives from a paper Telikicherla published on solar flare onsets in The Astrophysical Journal. SEUSHI is slated to fly next spring aboard a sounding rocket.

Sounding rockets are sub-orbital flights that soar to the edge of space and offer engineers and scientists an opportunity to conduct short duration experiments for a much lower cost than those on full size rockets.

鈥淥ur group tries to build new instruments to better understand the sun, and hopefully this flight demonstrates the technology and then we鈥檒l propose it as a long-term project aboard a future small satellite,鈥� Telikicherla said.

A native of Dehli in India, Telikicherla has been fascinated by space since a young age. He earned his bachelor鈥檚 at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, a university run by India鈥檚 national space agency, and then worked at the Indian Space Research Organization鈥檚 Human Spaceflight Center for two years.

The desire for advanced research drew him back to school.

鈥淢y work was fun, but I had a longing to do more fundamental research, to go beyond what a normal industry job does,鈥� he said.

He earned a master鈥檚 at the University of Alberta. There, he worked on a different sounding rocket instrument and earned first prize at the AIAA SmallSat conference student paper competition for a submission based on his master鈥檚 thesis.

Telikicherla wearing a clean room "bunny suit."

For his PhD, Telikicherla was drawn to 精品SM在线影片, where he had already spent time at as an undergrad in a summer exchange program called INSPIRE.

A collaboration with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), INSPIRE offers students from around the world the chance to come to Boulder to design and build a small satellite. It was where he was first introduced to Woods鈥� research.

鈥淗e was the PI on one of the satellite鈥檚 instruments and as we were building it, I realized I was more interested in the instrument than the larger spacecraft. That sounded more exciting, making new measurements of things no one has ever looked at before,鈥� Telikicherla said 鈥淚 told him I wanted to analyze the solar data after it launched and he said absolutely, even though I didn鈥檛 have a solar physics background.鈥�

Now a year into his PhD program, Telikicherla splits his time on campus between the lab and conducting observational analysis of existing solar flare data.

鈥淚 can download data in real-time from satellites using LASP鈥檚 downlink and that鈥檚 awesome,鈥� Telikicherla said. 鈥淭hen, let鈥檚 say I get bored staring at my computer for hours, I can go work in the lab instead. I get to do both, and I feel that鈥檚 very enjoyable from a PhD student life point of view.鈥�

SEUSHI is scheduled to launch aboard LASP鈥檚 EVE Rocket Program in April 2026 from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

Off

Traditional

White

Robots could one day crawl on the moon. These undergrads are laying the groundwork

Jeff Zehnder — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 18:38:40 +0000

Robots could one day crawl on the moon. These undergrads are laying the groundwork Jeff Zehnder Fri, 07/11/2025 - 12:38

The future of moon exploration may be rolling around a non-descript office on the 精品SM在线影片 campus.

Here, a robot about as wide as a large pizza scoots forward on three wheels. It uses an arm with a claw at one end to pick up a plastic block from the floor, then set it back down.

To be sure, this windowless office, complete with gray carpeting, is nothing like the moon. And the robot, nicknamed 鈥淎rmstrong,鈥� wouldn鈥檛 last a minute on its frigid surface.

But the scene represents a new vision for space exploration鈥攐ne in which fleets of robots working in tandem with people crawl across the lunar landscape, building scientific observatories or even human habitats.

Xavier O鈥橩eefe operates the robot from a room down the hall. He wears virtual reality goggles that allow him to see through a camera mounted on top of Armstrong.

鈥淚t鈥檚 impressively immersive,鈥� said O鈥橩eefe, who earned his bachelor鈥檚 degree in aerospace engineering sciences from 精品SM在线影片 this spring. 鈥淭he first couple of times I used the VR, the robot was sitting in the corner, and it was really weird to see myself using it.鈥�

He鈥檚 part of a team of current and former undergraduate students tackling a tricky question: How can humans on Earth get the training they need to operate robots on the hazardous terrain of the lunar surface? On the moon, gravity is only about one-sixth as strong as it is on our planet. The landscape is pockmarked with craters, some cast in permanent darkness.

In a new study, O鈥橩eefe and fellow 精品SM在线影片 alumni Katy McCutchan and Alexis Muniz report that 鈥渄igital twins,鈥� or hyper-realistic virtual reality environments, could provide a useful proxy for the moon鈥攇iving people a chance to get the hang of driving robots without risking damage to multi-million-dollar equipment.

The study is funded by NASA and the Colorado company Lunar Outpost. It is part of a larger research effort led by Jack Burns, astrophysics professor emeritus in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences (APS) and the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (CASA).

The Armstrong robot, top, and its digital twin, bottom. (Credit: Network for Exploration and Space Science)

鈥淭here was a lot of room to make mistakes with Armstrong since it wasn鈥檛 a million-dollar piece of hardware going to space,鈥� said McCutchan, who earned her master鈥檚 degree in aerospace engineering sciences from 精品SM在线影片 in 2025. 鈥淚t was a good sandbox to mess around in.鈥�

Digital twin

For Burns, a co-author of the study, Armstrong and its VR digital twin represent a big leap forward, despite the robot鈥檚 humble appearance. Burns is part of a team that has received a grant from NASA to design a futuristic scientific observatory on the moon called FarView鈥攚hich would be made up of a web of 100,000 antennas stretching over roughly 77 square miles of the lunar surface. Daniel Szafir of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill was also a co-author of the new study.

鈥淯nlike the Apollo program where human astronauts did all the heavy lifting on the moon, NASA鈥檚 21st century Artemis Program will combine astronauts and robotic rovers working in tandem,鈥� Burns said. 鈥淥ur efforts at 精品SM在线影片 are intended to make lunar robots more efficient and recoverable from errors, so precious astronaut time on the lunar surface will be better utilized.鈥�

The space group鈥檚 first hurdle: Creating a digital twin for Armstrong to roam around in. To do that, the researchers began by creating a digital replica of their office in a video game engine called Unity鈥攔ight down to the beige walls and drab carpet.

鈥淲e had to get the digital twin as close to real thing as possible,鈥� said O鈥橩eefe, who鈥檚 now a master鈥檚 student in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at 精品SM在线影片. 鈥淔or example, we timed how fast the robot moved over one yard. Then we did the same test in the virtual environment and got the robot鈥檚 speed to be the same.鈥�

Next, the team ran an experiment. In 2023 and 2024, they recruited 24 human participants to operate Armstrong while sitting in a room down the hall. Donning VR goggles, the subjects took the robot through a simple task: They picked up and adjusted a plastic block that represented one of the antennas in FarView.

Half of the participants, however, got a head start. They first practiced the same task in the digital version of the office.

Humans who got the chance to operate Armstrong鈥檚 digital twin before driving the real thing completed the task roughly 28% faster than participants who only got the chance to operate the physical robot. They also reported that they felt less stress during the task.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 what is really exciting about this鈥攜ou鈥檙e able to simulate everything in the environment, from the shadows to the texture of the dirt, and then train operators on conditions that are as close to real as possible,鈥� O鈥橩eefe said. 鈥淭hat way, once you get to the moon, you have a higher chance of success.鈥�

精品SM在线影片 researchers are working with the company Lunar Outpost to develop a digital twin of a rover on the surface of the moon. (Credit: Nico Goda/精品SM在线影片)

Real-world experience

McCutchan, who also joined the project as an undergrad, added that the study gave her and her fellow students a grounding in how research works in the real world.

For example, when the researchers began the experiment, they discovered that the human subjects kept making the same mistake. When they went to pick up the fake antennas with Armstrong, they often flipped the blocks over by accident. The group hadn鈥檛 anticipated that.

鈥淲henever you get people involved, they do things in ways you wouldn鈥檛 expect them to,鈥� said McCutchan, who recently started work as a mechanical solutions test engineer at BAE Systems, an aerospace company.

Today, Burns鈥� team is moving onto a new goal: They鈥檙e recreating the much more complex environment of the lunar surface. The researchers are working with the Colorado-based company Lunar Outpost to build a digital twin of a rover on the moon in the same game engine. The hardest part, O鈥橩eefe said, is getting the lunar dust just right.

鈥淭he rover will kick up dust with its wheels as it drives, and that could possibly block sensors or cameras,鈥� O鈥橩eefe said. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 really hard to know exactly how dust moves on the moon because you can鈥檛 just go outside and measure it.鈥�

For now, he is happy being a part of the future of lunar exploration, albeit from the safety of campus.

鈥淚t鈥檚 awesome to be part of this, even if it is a small part of getting people on the moon.鈥�

Off

Traditional

White

Computer science PhD student is making waves in research and the open water

Alexander James Servantez — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 16:27:34 +0000

Computer science PhD student is making waves in research and the open water Alexander Jame鈥� Wed, 07/09/2025 - 10:27

Corey Murphey is working to understand the spread of pathogens through these aerosols and limit the transmission of airborne, infectious diseases. But she's also an accomplished marathon open-water swimmer who recently took first place in the SCAR Swim Challenge.

Off

Traditional

White

Scientists develop method to build tiny custom microrobots

Susan Glairon — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 14:20:11 +0000

Scientists develop method to build tiny custom microrobots Susan Glairon Tue, 07/08/2025 - 08:20

The tiny particles could potentially help enhance drug distribution in human organs, improving the drug鈥檚 overall effectiveness or aid in removing pollutants from contaminated environments.

Off

Traditional

White

Symposium advances structural engineering toward zero carbon

Susan Glairon — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 22:35:25 +0000

Symposium advances structural engineering toward zero carbon Susan Glairon Mon, 07/07/2025 - 16:35

Susan Glairon

The event, which drew 166 participants to 精品SM在线影片鈥檚 campus, marked an industry-wide step toward cutting emissions tied to building materials like steel and concrete.

Off

Traditional

White

Andras Gyenis receives CAREER award to develop next-generation quantum processors

Charles Ferrer — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 16:30:02 +0000

Andras Gyenis receives CAREER award to develop next-generation quantum processors Charles Ferrer Wed, 06/25/2025 - 10:30

Andras Gyenis, assistant professor of electrical engineering, has earned a CAREER award through the National Science Foundation to design and build more robust superconducting qubits that could push the boundaries of quantum hardware.

Off

Traditional

White

Wildfires threaten water quality for years after they burn

Susan Glairon — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 16:21:26 +0000

Wildfires threaten water quality for years after they burn Susan Glairon Mon, 06/23/2025 - 10:21

A new study published today in Nature Communications Earth & Environment is the first large-scale assessment of post-wildfire water quality. Ben Livneh, associate professor in civil, environmental and architectural engineering, was the principal investigator and co-author of the study.

Off

Traditional

White

Mortenson Center innovations delivering clean water to more than five million worldwide

Susan Glairon — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 23:00:23 +0000

Mortenson Center innovations delivering clean water to more than five million worldwide Susan Glairon Fri, 06/20/2025 - 17:00

精品SM在线影片's Mortenson Center in Global Engineering & Resilience is transforming global water access by treating clean water as a long-term service鈥攏ot just a one-time infrastructure project.

Off

Traditional

White