Biomateriomics

Materiomics is defined as the study of materials properties by examining fundamental links between processes, structures, and properties at multiple scales and their interactions, by using systematic experimental, theoretical, and computational methods. Biomateriomics is defined specifically as the study of biological tissues and structures, including materials such as bone, skin, cells, silk or ectopic materials such as amyloids. Biomateriomics also includes the analysis of the role of materials in the context of biological processes, the transfer of biological material principles towards biomimetic and bioinspired applications, and the study of interfaces between living and non-living systems. Biomateriomics contributes to develop a de novo understanding of biological material processes and to the potential of exploiting novel concepts in technological innovation. More immediate, biomateriomics finds applications in elucidating the biological role of materials in biology, for instance in the progression and diagnosis or the treatment of diseases. Other proponents apply materiomics to help identify new material platforms for tissue engineering applications, for instance for the development of biomaterials. Inevitably, materiomics holds great promise for nanoscience and nanotechnology, where material concepts from biology might enable the bottom-up development of new functional structures and materials or devices. The goal of this book is to characterize this new field of research, biomateriomics, to examine its current state and to present future research opportunities in medicine, biology and materials science. This book takes advantage and builds on recent independent advances in materials science, protein science, linguistics, and mathematics. Research of protein materials and structures and related fields (e.g. genetic sequencing [genomics], protein functionality, self-assembly, nanomaterial design) have boomed independently in the last years, resulting in a broad variety of case studies and examples. The number and the depth of these studies provide a sufficiently large data set to systematically structure and analyze the field, and to distill first broad commonalities and universal principles. Here, we achieve this feat for the first time by means of system theory with a focus on functionality and the underlying relations between elementary building blocks and rules.