Karan has accepted a summer internship with Carbon 3D, a 3D printing innovation startup company based in Redwood City, California. Congratulations Karan!
The Particulate and Multiphase Processes (PMP) Program of the National Science Foundation’s Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems (CBET) has awarded $455,000 to Dr. Bruns, with partial support from the Polymers (POL) program in the Division of Materials Research. The grant will support the Emergent Nanomaterials Lab effort to encode self-assembly information into microscopic hydrogel particles using flow photolithography techniques. The three-year project may provide a foundation for the scalable self-assembly of soft micromachines.
CHROMAPRAXIS is a tattoo innovation startup company co-founded by Carson Bruns and Jesse Butterfield with the support of the OEDIT grant. CHROMAPRAXIS has joined the 12-week Catalyze CU startup accelerator program to begin the process of commercializing our innovative biomedically engineered tattoo pigments.
The Advanced Industries Accelerator Proof-of-Concept Grant supports R&D and business development expenses to accelerate the commercialization of laboratory technology. The OEDIT grant awarded to Dr. Bruns will support the development of biomedical tattoo pigments that help reduce skin cancer risk. The Bruns lab will collaborate with the laboratory of Professor Rajesh Agarwal at the University of Colorado Denver Anschutz Medical Campus to evaluate the safety and efficacy of the inks in mammalian models.
Kailey competed in the Female Founders Competition of the New Venture Challenge on Thursday, March 18, 2021 and took home first prize, with a $5000 cash award for her startup company, Chembotix LLC. 4 days later, the Chembotix team took home another $6000 in cash for winning the pitch competition in the New Venture Launch class. Congratulations Kailey and the whole Chembotix team! Read the story here.
Kailey won a competition for a $500 “Get Seed Funding” seed grant sponsored by CU Innovation & Entrepreneurship. She’s using the funds to buy materials needed to build her chemical synthesis robot. Congratulations Kailey!
The Mechanics of Materials and Structures (MOMS) program in the Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced award #2023179 to our proposal entitled “Mechanics of Active Slide-Ring Networks: from Molecular Motors to Molecular Machine“ , with Franck Vernerey as PI and Carson Bruns as Co-PI. The project provides almost $0.5M to support the development of a statistical mechanics theory (Vernerey), validated by experiment (Bruns), that can explain and predict the mechanics of slide-ring gels and actuators.
Purnendu, Kailey, and Jesse have all passed their Preliminary Exams this summer. An official welcome to the PhD program and congratulations all of you!
Carson gave the first of a new series of webinars hosted by the Chemistry Department at the University of Zurich. Many thanks to Professors Michal Juríček and Michal Shoshan for the invitation and hosting!
Since 1999 the Graduate School at the University of Colorado Boulder has been awarding $1000 grants, named in honor of Beverly Sears and funded by generous donors, to graduate students who compete annually for these prizes. Pitching her chemistry robot project, Kailey Shara was one of this year’s winners. Congratulations Kailey!
Carson hosted an Art Pop-Up in the engineering center at CU Boulder, where students wandering by had a chance to stop and try their hand at tattooing, while learning about our work on tattoo innovation.
Carson gave a Bufftalk (CU’s homegrown version of a TED talk) to CU alumni, students, parents, prospectives, and friends at the award-winning NEXT event in New York City. Watch the Bufftalk here.
The Vantis Institute has developed an innovative method of pigmenting the dermis of the scalp (in a manner akin to permanent makeup) for hair loss restoration treatment. Bruns is now the first member of their board of advisors. Together, we hope to revolutionize medical aesthetics by collaborating on the most cutting-edge technology available in the world of tattoos and permanent makeup.
Did you know that, although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the authority to regulate color additives in cosmetic products (and tattoo inks are considered cosmetics) no pigment has ever been FDA-approved for tattoo inks and permanent makeup? In a way, all tattoo inks are illegal, although the FDA has, historically, not exercised its right to regulate the industry. Carson has joined forces with the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO) Body Art Committee to get the first Color Additive Petition for tattoo inks through FDA approval. It will be a long process, but if we are successful, it will help establish protocols for the FDA to help maintain the safety of pigments that are injected into the skin of hundreds of millions of Americans.
Our work on nano-engineered tattoos is featured in the Tattoo: Identity Through Ink exhibit at the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa, from June 19, 2019 through April 26, 2020. Carson gave the third and final lecture of their Fall lecture series in cooperation with the Scandinavian Studies and Chemistry Departments at Luther College, his alma matter. What an honor it was!
Carson discusses our biomedical tattoos in an episode of The History Channel’s Ancient Aliens. Watch the episode.
See the latest story on our tattoo research over at Blogthinkbig.com
A small group of teens joined Carson today to learn about smart tattoos in the Teen Science Cafe at the Belmar Library in Lakewood, CO. The hands-on activity involved tattooing bananas with our smart (thermochromic and photochromic) tattoo inks! Many thanks to all the teens who participated.
Carson gave a keynote talk on Tech Tattoos at the me Convention in Frankfurt, a future-focused technology conference organized by SXSW and Mercedes-Benz in partnership.
Carson speaks about tech tattoos, molecular machines, and the future on The Disruptors, a podcast to shift humanity’s focus to the future.
Here's the YouTube link: https://youtu.be/DdYfnwR-T1M