Angela M. Belcher is a

materials scientist Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origins of materials scien ...

, biological engineer, and the James Mason Crafts Professor of Biological Engineering and Materials Science at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

(MIT) in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. She is director of the Biomolecular Materials Group at MIT, a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and a 2004

MacArthur Fellow The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and 30 individuals workin ...

. In 2019, she was named head of the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. She was elected a member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

in 2022.

Early life and education

Belcher grew up in San Antonio, Texas. She attended the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...

, where she received her

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

from the

College of Creative Studies The College of Creative Studies (CCS) is the smallest of the three Undergraduate education, undergraduate colleges at the University of California, Santa Barbara, unique within the University of California system in terms of structure and phi ...

in 1991 and her Ph.D. in chemistry in 1997.

Career

After studying abalone shells, she worked with several colleagues at MIT and engineered a virus, known as the

M13 bacteriophage M13 is one of the Ff phages (fd and f1 are others), a member of the family filamentous bacteriophage ( inovirus). Ff phages are composed of circular single-stranded DNA (ssDNA), which in the case of the m13 phage is 6407 nucleotides long and i ...

whose target is usually ''

Escherichia coli ''Escherichia coli'' ( )Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. is a gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus '' Escherichia'' that is commonly fo ...

''. M13 can be made to latch onto and coat itself with inorganic materials including gold and cobalt oxide. The long tubular virus (coated in cobalt oxide) now acts as a minuscule length of wire called a

nanowire file:SnSe@SWCNT.jpg, upright=1.2, Crystalline 2×2-atom tin selenide nanowire grown inside a single-wall carbon nanotube (tube diameter ≈1 nm). A nanowire is a nanostructure in the form of a wire with the diameter of the order of a nanometre ( ...

. Belcher's group coaxed many of these nanowires together and found that they resemble the basic components of a potentially very powerful and compact battery. In 2002 she founded Cambrios with Evelyn L. Hu of (at the time)

. Their vision relied upon the use of nanostructured inorganic materials, fabricated and shaped by biological molecules to create novel materials and processes for a variety of industries. She also founded and serves on the Advisory Committee of

Siluria Technologies Siluria Technologies, Inc. was a San Francisco-based research company founded in 2007. It attempted to develop a commercial method to convert natural gas into ethylene, gasoline or diesel fuel using chemical catalysts. The company received over $1 ...

, which develops catalytic methods for converting natural gas into products such as ethylene, gasoline, and diesel fuel. In 2009 Belcher and her team demonstrated the feasibility of using genetically modified viruses to build both anode and cathode of a

lithium-ion battery A lithium-ion or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery that uses the reversible intercalation of Li+ ions into electronically conducting solids to store energy. Li-ion batteries are characterized by higher specific energy, energ ...

. These new batteries have the same energy capacity and power as cutting-edge rechargeable batteries earmarked for use in

hybrid cars A hybrid vehicle is one that uses two or more distinct types of power, such as submarines that use diesel when surfaced and batteries when submerged. Other means to store energy include pressurized fluid in hydraulic hybrids. Hybrid powertrain ...

, as well as powering a range of electronic devices. The batteries could be manufactured using a cheap and environmentally friendly process, as the synthesis can be done near room temperature, using no harmful solvents or toxic materials. In October 2009, President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

visited Belcher's lab at MIT. In 2014 Belcher and her group demonstrated the potential for M13 phages to detect cancer. They developed a nanoprobe that uses M13 virus-stabilized SWNTs (single walled carbon nanotubes) to visualize deep, disseminated tumors in vivo. Using this process, they were able to identify submillimeter tumors. A ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' article featured her work on viral batteries and ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

'' named her research leader of the year in 2006 for her current project. In 2002, she was named to the

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "''The''" in its name on April 23, 1998, under then pu ...

TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35. In 2013, Belcher was awarded the Lemelson-MIT Prize. She has been elected to the Academy of Arts & Sciences and the

National Academy of Inventors The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) is a US non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging inventors in academia, following the model of the National Academies of the United States. It was founded at the University of South Florida in 201 ...

. Belcher was also elected as a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

in 2018 for the development of novel genetic evolution methods for the generation of new materials and devices. In 2022, Belcher was appointed to the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology. In 2024, Belcher was awarded the

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral science, behavior ...

References

External links

Ted Talk by Angela Belcher: Using nature to grow batteries

''Are viruses the way to green manufacturing?'' - Karen Weintraub

SXSW Panel: Beyond the Bench: Shaping Biotech Policy to Enable Innovation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Belcher, Angela American women biochemists Living people MacArthur Fellows MIT School of Engineering faculty American materials scientists American nanotechnologists University of California, Santa Barbara alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American women scientists American women academics Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers