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King Abdullah University of Science and Technology at Thuwal, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
www.kaust.edu.sa
BEACONthe ة املنـار
September 2014 / Thul Qedah - Thul Hijjah 1435 Volume 5, Issue No. 1
HIGHLY CITED RESEARCHERS | Continued on p8
PLASTIC | Continued on p3USING SCIENCE TO FEED | Continued on p7
DIVERSITY | Continued on p5
الصبر من القليل هو جديدة أشياء الكتشاف تحتاجه ما كل أحيانا أبحاث آخر في فعاًل حدث ما وهذا متنوعة. برؤية أبحاث وفريق التي )copolymer( كوبوليمر جسيمات لكتلة البيولوجية المحاكاة الدكتور هم عبداهلل الملك جامعة من أساتذة مجموعة أجراها زمالء الى إضافة نونيس، سوزانا والدكتورة بينيمان فيكتور كالوس ما بعد الدكتوراه الدكتور هايشياو يو والدكتور زياويان كوي. ونشرت Nature Communication نتائج هذا البحث في ورقة بحثية في مجلة
في شهر مايو الماضي.
البحر أبحاث إريجوين مدير مركز زابير البروفيسور فريق عمل توصل األحمر، الى معرفة أن كمية المواد البالستيكية في المحيطات مرتفعة بحثية ورقة في أخيرًا البحث هذا نتائج نشر وتم متوقعه. غير بصورة األكاديمية في مجلة ”Plastic Debris in the Open Ocean " بعنوان
.)PNAS( الوطنية للعلوموفي ما يلي جانب من حوارنا مع البروفيسور زابير إريجوين.
دكتور اريجوين، هل يمكنك أن تتحدث لنا بإيجاز عن هذا البحث؟ أجرينا في هذه الورقة دراسة مفصلة عن مدى انتشار المواد البالستيكية االستكشافية. رحالتنا خالل المفتوحة العالم محيطات في الدقيقة حيث قمنا بعمل بعض االختبارات وجمع العينات من محيطات العالم المختلفة. وتمكنا من الخروج بنتيجتين رئيسيتين : األولى أن البالستيك منتشر في كل مكان ، والثانية أن معدل البالستيك الذي عثرنا عليه أقل
تتمه صفحة 3
تتمه صفحة 5
Sometimes what it takes to discover something new is a team with a diversified
vision and a lot of patience. At least, this was the case with the latest biomimetic
block copolymer particle research conducted by KAUST professors Dr. Klaus-
Viktor Peinemann and Dr. Suzana Nunes, along with postdoctoral fellows Dr.
Haizhou Yu and Dr. Xiaoyan Qiu.
“For me, the most interesting thing with this experiment, is that when most
people reach a point in the results when they think this is not what is expected,
they will stop. But Haizhou Yu and Xiaoyan Qiu didn’t stop. They are the type
“The world’s population stands at 6.5 billion people right
now. By the year 2050, we will be 9.5 billion. So we will
have a gap of about 3 billion people to feed in the next 35
years,” said Heribert Hirt, Associate Director of KAUST’s
Center for Desert Agriculture. An upcoming international
conference at KAUST, titled Desert Rhizosphere Microbes for
Future Sustainable Agriculture, to be held on November 3-5,
2015, will focus on examining ways to help plants and crops
survive and thrive in extreme environmental conditions.
“We try and understand how these plants can actually
live under these extreme conditions and determine how
we can use this knowledge from these plants,” Hirt said.
“We are looking into the microbes that are living with these
plants and help them to establish themselves under these
conditions of heat, drought and salt which are the three key
factors in agriculture.”
As we face the growing reality of global warming, this
knowledge is of primal importance. We will have more heat
and resulting droughts. So our agricultural system will need
Four KAUST faculty members were recently
acknowledged in “Thomson Reuters Highly
Cited Researchers 2014.” Congratulations to
KAUST researchers Dr. Jean M.J. Frechet, Dr.
“These are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the
tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets
the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly
remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.”
Perhaps the following interview with Dr. Xabier Irigoien,
Director of the Red Sea Center, isn’t quite as dramatic as Herman
Melville’s “Moby Dick,” but it is true that the world’s oceans
are not as beautiful, nor as clean as they once were. Irigoien’s
findings were recently published in a paper titled, “Plastic Debris
in the Open Ocean,” in the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Science (PNAS).
We recently sat down with Dr. Irigoien for a face-to-face
interview. Candid and insightful, he detailed the findings of
USING SCIENCE TO FEED THREE BILLION PEOPLE
HIGHLY CITED RESEARCHERS
MORE PLASTIC THAN EXPECTED IN THE OCEAN
اكتشف الباحثون ارتفاع كمية املواد البالستيكية يف املحيطات أكثر مما كان متوقعا
INSIDE: Research 6-7 Community 8News 1-5
التنوع يساعد فريق االحباث على اكتشاف جسيمات جديدة
DIVERSITY HELPS TEAM DISCOVER NEW PARTICLES
“I really think that for science to be an inspiration,
for science to be exciting, you have to address a
big question,” said Prof. Pierre Magistretti, Dean
of KAUST’s Biological and Environmental Science
and Engineering Division and Bioscience Professor,
during a recent orientation speech to new students.
The guiding principles Magistretti focused on
in his talk were: curiosity, passion, establishing
a short and long-term vision, and balancing
the requirements of being both self-critical and
self-confident.
As he reminded the incoming master's and Ph.D.
candidates that they are in “one of the best places
in the world,” Magistretti said it’s really up to them
to follow their curiosity and identify important
questions—with the help of their mentors. Stressing
the importance of applying themselves to learning
proven and accepted scientific knowledge, he
cautioned students, especially the ones doing
original research, to not be afraid of questioning
prevailing paradigms.
“If you want to advance science you have to
tackle, as I said, a big question for which there
is not yet an answer. And that’s everything there
is about science,” he said. Highlighting the fact
that their academic mentors have in most cases
10 to 30 years experience in their field, and thus
may be inclined to be less critical of received
hypotheses, he pointed out that “graduate
students have some kind of ignorance about the
field. This ignorance can be sometimes helpful
because it provides an unbiased, fresh eye
toward a question.”
Expressing his confidence that the students
must possess that curiosity fiber to have been
accepted at KAUST, Magistretti said that those
traits of curiosity and passion represent the
bedrock of a scientific career.
“When you do experiments, when you do
research, don’t let your creativity be constrained
by your knowledge,” Magistretti cautioned.
“As a scientist you have to like uncertainty. You
have to like to be in unchartered territory and you
must not be unsettled by the unknown. Actually,
you have to be driven by the unknown. And that’s
a matter of passion. So this is really an engine
to move ahead in your quest for knowledge and
discovery. You need passion,” he said.
ESTABLISHING LONG AND SHORT-TERM GOALS
Defining what “the big question” is, however,
is only the first step. Equally important is
devising a sustainable strategy to stay on track.
Short-term goals have to be very rigorous, very
concrete, very down-to-earth and integrated in a
long-term vision. But at the same time students
“should think long-term and a vision about the
big question that they want to answer. It’s a
juggling act every day,” Magistretti explained.
While having their research published in a
great journal is an ambition of any graduate
student as they embark on their academic career,
it should not be their only goal. The BESE Dean
said, “your goal should be to find something
important, to ask an important question and to
find something significant—especially if you’re in
a place like KAUST. And at the same time, as you
go to the lab everyday to conduct experiments
and try something, you must be conscious of the
fact that most of the time it won’t work. You must
keep on persisting.”
Having the passion and the vision to address
big questions will help overcome the frustrations
of the short-term goals that sometimes
inevitably occur.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SELF-CONFIDENCE“In addition to being curious, driven and
passionate, you have to be very self-confident
when you do science,” Magistretti told
the incoming students. “You really have to
believe in yourself. This is important. Okay,
the experiment didn’t work, you’ll try another
one and modify this but you go ahead. And at
the same time you have to be extremely, and
I really underscore, extremely self-critical. At
every moment of your journey in science you
have to question what you have found. Is this
really true? Is this an artifact maybe? Or is
this something that is only marginal and you
kind of blow it up thinking that it’s a big and
important observation. So here again you need
to have a balance.”
The path to a Ph.D. isn’t always easy. A
student may have an idea which he or she thinks
is the greatest concept since Leonardo DaVinci.
But, on occasion, the mentor will advise against
it when they think it will not work. “I would say
that 90 percent of the time the mentor would be
right,” said Magistretti.
“So again it’s a matter of balance,” he adds.
“You have to trust the knowledge that your
mentor has acquired over the years and let
him or her orient you towards an important
question and you can bring an important
contribution to a bigger picture that the
mentor has developed over time. But I think,
particularly as you progress in your Ph.D., as
you read more and acquire more knowledge,
you gain a fresh eye also.”
Conducting original research always
entails a measure of self-confidence when
questioning existing knowledge. This
comes hand-in-hand with being extremely
self-critical. To illustrate this point, Prof.
Magistretti referred to a quote by pioneering
scientist, Sir Isaac Newton, who said he “made
discoveries because he was standing on the
shoulders of giants.”
“We have to acknowledge the truth and
validity of existing knowledge but at the same
time we have to be ready to question it.”
KAUST PROFESSOR ELECTED MEMBER OF AGYAKAUST’s Osman Bakr, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and
Engineering, was elected one of the first 50 members of the Arab-German
Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA) this June.
The first 50 AGYA members were selected after two calls for membership
in 2013 and 2014. From these calls, the organization chose 25 Arab and
25 German outstanding researchers to represent their community. The
selected members came from universities and research institutions across
the Middle East including Egypt, Jordan, Oman and Saudi Arabia as well
as Germany.
To celebrate the announcement, Bakr and his fellow members gathered for the opening
conference in Germany at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities
(BBAW) in Berlin to discuss topics around education, energy, water and environment, cultural
heritage, innovation and transformation processes. They also attended AGYA’s opening
ceremony on June 21.
AGYA began in 2013 at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in
Germany and the Arabian Gulf University in Bahrain as the first bilateral young academy in the
world. Its goal is to promote cooperation between Arab and German researchers who are in the
first ten years of their career following their Ph.D.
AGYA also support interdisciplinary projects across various fields of research, scientific policy
and education, and see their members as ambassadors of science and culture.
DR. BLANCA AYUSO DE DIOS NAMED VISITING SCHOLAR Dr. Blanca Ayuso de Dios, KAUST Visiting Researcher of Stochastic Numerics
Research Group, has been named the 2013 Romberg Visiting Scholar by the
Heidelberg Graduate School of Mathematical and Computational Methods for
the Sciences. The official notification was made in February, 2014.
After receiving her Ph.D. in Mathematical Sciences from Universidad
Autonoma de Madrid (Spain) in October 2003, de Dios took a postdoctoral
position at the Istituto di Matematica Applicata e Tecnologie Informatiche in
Pavia, Italy. In 2007, she returned to Madrid as an Assistant Professor. Several
years later, her work led her to the Centre de Recerca Matematica in Barcelona,
as a Ramon y Cajal Researcher. On January 2014, she joined KAUST and the Stochastic Numerics Research
Group as Visiting Researcher.
Her research is mainly concerned with the development and analysis of numerical methods (mainly of
finite element type) for partial differential equations. She is also active in the analysis and development
of fast solvers for the algebraic systems that arise from numerical discretization, in particular domain
decomposition and multilevel methods. Her more recent interests include uncertainty quantification,
and the applications of her work are most directly related to continuum mechanics and plasma physics.
The Romberg Visiting Scholarship is for up to six months, while spanning an eligible period of three
years. During visits, de Dios will contribute to the training and research program of HGS MathComp.
In doing so, she will work closely with Prof. Guido Kanschat and other members of the IWR, the
Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing of Heidelberg University.
News2 September 2014 The Beacon
A great university is defined by its people. As we enter our fifth academic year, I would like to thank you
for your collective dedication to building a world-class research university and a vibrant community.
Like you, each year, I enjoy welcoming our new students to campus—they come with fresh ideas, new
perspectives and the drive to succeed. This fall we welcome 284 new students to KAUST, as well as
11 new faculty, 30 new post docs and 64 staff members. Since last summer, 27 faculty, 175 post docs
and over 300 staff members have agreed to join our ranks. They and their families join you to bring
forth the best ideas from all over the world. Our international DNA makes us truly unique, with over
100 nationalities confidently working together to advance innovative research and education that will
benefit humanity.
Collectively, we share the same passion for curiosity, adventure and creativity—simply put, we love
challenges. This is why we attract some of the world’s best scientists, engineers, scholars, administrators,
professionals and staff who arrive at KAUST ready to embrace the opportunity before us. Together,
we are exploring the world’s most difficult problems in an environment that motivates us to think
big. My good friend Dean Pierre Magistretti recently told our new students “as a scientist you have to
like uncertainty. You have to like to be in unchartered territory and you must not be unsettled by the
unknown. Actually, you have to be driven by the unknown.”
I believe this applies to all of us, in every corner of KAUST. After five years we are still navigating
unchartered territory, but to our advantage we have the brightest minds in the world and our shared
passion for a good challenge. King Abdullah gave us this opportunity by intentionally creating a
university “where faculty, students and staff would have the freedom to aim high and explore risky
ideas without constraints.”
Welcome to the new academic year and let’s continue our journey as a Great University!
The Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 1, September 2014. Published by The Communications Department, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia. Contact Salah Sindi salah.sindi@kaust.edu.sa, or Nicholas Demille nicholas.demille@kaust.edu.sa © King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. Printed on partially recycled paper.
Jean-Lou Chameau
THE BIG QUESTION: ADVICE FOR NEW STUDENTS
the expedition’s research, spoke of what
worries him and talked about what’s next
in the global battle to clean up our oceans.
Dr. Irigoien, could you please give a brief
synopsis of this latest research?
This is a paper where we studied the
distribution of microplastics in the open
ocean around the planet. This was done
with an expedition crew that went around
the planet collecting samples. There are two
main messages and findings that we got.
The first is that there is plastic everywhere.
There are microplastics as far away from dry
land as one can travel. The second finding is
that much less plastic was found than what
should be there. We know the amount of
plastics that are produced, and the number
of plastics that are entering the ocean. This
means the plastics are either sinking or
going into the food chain of ocean species.
So that’s the crux of it? You have a pretty
good bead on the quantity of plastics that
are leaving dry land and going out into the
oceans. You’re expecting to find a certain
quantity, but that quantity is not there.
Then, it’s a question of where it has gone,
and is it then harmful in some fashion?
Yes. The exact estimation of how much
plastic is going out into the oceans is not
absolutely precise, but we are finding 100
times less plastic than expected. So even if
the outgoing plastic estimation is slightly
off, the discrepancy between what plastic
is being found is a lot less…a lot less. So,
the plastic is entering the ocean, and then
breaking down into microplastics – but then
much of it is disappearing.
Another interesting observation is that
for the larger-sized plastic materials, we are
finding the expected amounts. But for the
smaller-sized plastics, the microplastics- they
are disappearing. There is a range of smaller
sizes that are disappearing. In 88 percent of
the water samples we pulled from the world’s
oceans, we found plastics.
That is a significant percentage. To clarify,
when you’re referring to plastics, you are
talking about trash? Trash that is dumped
by humans – via barges and so forth -that
then travels into the open ocean?
Yes, it’s coming out from the rivers, from
the coast, wherever.
OK. So let’s just take a plastic milk container,
for example. When you’re referring
to microplastics, you’re talking about
something that, when traveling out into the
open ocean, it is being deteriorated by salt
water, so it ends up in tiny pieces?
Yes, what happens is the weathering
effect. You have the sun, the salt, the water
– so the plastic starts breaking down. Any
large piece will break into smaller pieces.
Those smaller pieces break down to even
small sizes, and so on - eventually to sizes
less than one millimeter. We found that
in the centimeter sized ranges, there is
an amount of plastics that we expected.
When we looked for sizes in the one to
two millimeter range, we found that they
are, and have been, disappearing. And our
main hypothesis is that they are being
eaten by fish.
Are there studies that have caught fish
and checked their digestive systems to
see if plastics are present?
There are studies looking at fish in the
open ocean, and they have found that
they do eat the plastics. There are a limited
number of these studies, but they do find that
the fish do have plastics in their stomachs.
Is there a risk of these microplastics
getting back into human water supplies?
No. Although the microplastics are very
tiny, they are still much larger than anything
that could pass through water treatment
facilities. But, the real concern would be the
plastics that enter the food chain, when fish
eat them.
Was there anything that surprised you
in these findings?
The fact that there are plastics everywhere.
Perhaps that was naïve on our part. You’re
used to going to the open ocean and seeing
clean, clear water everywhere so you don’t
expect to find as much as we did. The other
surprise is that so much plastic is missing, is
unaccounted for. The question then is where
has it gone?
What’s the next step in the research?
The next step is to find out where the
microplastics are going, with certainty. Our
main hypotheses are that they are being eaten
or that they sink.
What’s the most important message for
the average person on the street?
Plastics have been around for a long
time, and they are a large part of our
daily lives. Eliminating plastics from our
lives is not practical. But the issue of the
management of the plastic trash, any trash,
is something that needs to be addressed.
3September 2014www.kaust.edu.sa
LAST MONTH, as part of its Distinguished Speakers lecture series,
the Saudi Research Science Institute (SRSI) hosted world-renowned
MIT Professor Woodie Flowers—one of the most recognizable faces
in modern robotics.
Flowers is perhaps best known by young international students
who compete in the FIRST LEGO League—a robotics program
designed to engage secondary and high school students in science
and technology—for coining the phrase “gracious professionalism,”
which encourages nondestructive competition,
knowledge-sharing and mutual respect among
peers for the betterment of all.
At lunch and dinner prior to the lecture,
young SRSI scholars flocked to Flowers to
discuss the future of modern technologies and
share their experiences participating in the
LEGO League. Students also tried their best
to find out in advance from Flowers all they
could about topics in his upcoming lecture,
which they eagerly awaited.
The reason for Flowers’ broad international
appeal to young people was immediately
apparent in his lecture. A captivating and
creative speaker, he began by telling the
students about his first steps into technology as a teenager from
a poor family in Louisiana, USA. Now one of MIT’s most beloved
researchers, he said his goal is to create a passion for technology
in his students.
Indeed, Flowers’ course, Introduction to Design and Manufacturing,
is one of the most popular and influential engineering courses at
MIT. In it, students are given kits containing parts, and must compete
throughout the semester to design robotic devices. Flowers described
the evolution of the course, from something simple and low-profile,
to a campus-wide event, and finally to an internationally-recognized
course. He noted that the course is intended to inspire students to
tackle increasingly challenging problems each year.
Flowers then described the FIRST LEGO League robotics
competitions, which he helped to create, and his work to engage
younger audiences in the rewards and challenges of robotics. Now
spanning nearly 60 countries, these efforts have enjoyed increasing
success, and an award in his name celebrates advances in effective
communication in engineering and design.
The lecture concluded with a long Q & A session, in
which SRSI participants had the opportunity to continue the
discussion with Flowers.
“It was both exciting and gratifying to see the students’
overwhelming response to Prof. Flowers’ talk,” said Debra Carlson
Wood, Manager of Young Talent Development for Saudi Initiatives.
“Clearly, his topic and his approach resonated deeply.”
The SRSI program hosts 45 top high school students from
throughout the Kingdom for six weeks of intensive research
under world-class KAUST faculty mentors. Now in its fourth
year, SRSI inspires the next generation of young Saudi leaders
in science and research. SRSI is administered by KAUST’s Saudi
Initiatives organization.
SAUDI RESEARCH SCIENCE INSTITUTE HOSTS WORLD-RENOWNED MIT PROF. WOODIE FLOWERS
News
PLASTIC | Continued from p1 تتمة الصفحة األولى:بكثير من ما يفترض أن يكون. ألننا نعرف مقدار المواد البالستيكية التي يتم إنتاجها، ونسبة المواد البالستيكية التي تصل للمحيطات. وهذا يعني أن هذه المواد البالستيكية إما أنها وصلت إلى قاع المحيط أو دخلت
ضمن السلسلة الغذائية لكائنات المحيطات.
أين اختفى البالستيك وهل هو ضار للبيئة؟ تقديرنا عن كمية البالستيك التي تصل إلى المحيطات ليس دقيقًا كفاية، ولكننا الحظنا أن كمية البالستيك التي وجدنها هي أقل بمائة مرة عن ما كان متوقعا. حيث أننا نعلم أن كثير من البالستيك يصل الى المحيط ثم يتحلل الى مواد بالستيكية دقيقة – ولكن جزء كبير منها يختفي
بصورة محيرة.وثمة مالحظة أخرى مثيرة لالهتمام وهي أن كمية المواد البالستيكية التي الدراسات بحسب متوقع كان لما تمامًا مماثلة الحجم الكبيرة للمواد بالنسبة تماما الموضوع مختلف ولكن المجال في هذا أجريت البالستكية الصغيرة الحجم و الدقيقة والتي لوحظ أنها تختفي بنسب متفاوتة. وخالل هذه الدراسة عثرنا على مواد بالستيكية في %88 من
عينات المياه التي جمعناها من مختلف محيطات العالم.
هل هناك خطر في أن تصل هذه المواد البالستيكية الدقيقة الى مخزوننا من مياه الشرب؟
هذه المواد البالستيكية دقيقة جدًا ولكنها أكبر من أن تتجاوز عملية المواد أن تدخل هذه الحقيقي هو الخطر المياه. لكن معالجة وتحلية
ضمن السلسلة الغذائية في حال تناولتها االسماك.
ما هو أكثر ما فاجأك في هذه النتائج؟حقيقة وجود البالستيك في كل مكان. حيث أننا اعتدنا على الذهاب إلى المحيطات المفتوحة ورؤية المياه نظيفة ونقية في كل مكان، ولم يخطر ببالنا العثور على هذه الكمية الكبيرة من البالستيك. والمفاجأة البالستكية تختفي، وال يمكننا المواد الكثير من هذه أن األخرى هي
معرفة أين اختفت؟
ما هي الخطوة التالية في هذا البحث؟الدقيقة البالستيكية المواد هذه مسار معرفة هي التالية الخطوة تنتهي كطعام إما أنها لدينا هي الرئيسية والفرضيات المحيطات. في
.لألسماك أو انها وصلت إلى قاع المحيطات
The BeaconResearch4 September 2014
MATH is in everything including football, but it takes a mathematician
like Dr. Peter Markowich to explain how football equates to life.
“I really love football. I actually grew up with football. My father
took me to the pitch when I was a young boy and even my mother
came along. It was a family thing, and since that time I’ve gone to
see matches,” said Dr. Peter Markowich, Distinguished Professor of
Applied Mathematics at KAUST.
But while the game is fun to watch, there are various aspects of
football where mathematics are involved. The first example is one that
Markowich says is a more philosophical concept.
FOOTBALL AND THE MEANING OF LIFE “If you think of football as a whole—any football match that is 90
minutes—it is really a great example of a very complicated random
process. I would say it’s a random process with a drift,” he said.
The randomness Markowich is talking about comes from everyone
involved in the game. It includes the physical shape of the players, how
the leading players slept during the night, how the referee sees things
and the quality of the pitch. Even the weather plays a role. “Maybe it
rains; maybe it doesn’t. It depends on very minor things—so in some
sense this is a simplified version of life. I mean, life is a random
process with a drift and football is likewise,” Markowich explained.
The drift is there because the better team should win, but this
doesn’t always happen and the “not always” is when the randomness
becomes too strong and takes over the drift. “In a football match, you
have 11 players on each side – the more players the more complexity
you have to the game. You have external factors and internal factors
and it’s all random, but in many cases the drift beats the randomness,”
Markowich said.
Take a look at the world champions in the last 30 years. It wasn’t
always the favorites that won, but it was always good teams and that
is what Markowich says is the drift. There may be some consistency
overall, but in a single match anything is possible.
“I think that’s what makes football so exciting. It is just not
predetermined. You never know when you get in the game what will
happen. If you compare it with tennis, which is a game that I like
very much, there are only two players so it’s much less complex,” said
Markowich." There is still some randomness, but most often in tennis
the favorite wins. With 11 players many more things can happen.”
AND THEN THERE’S THE CROWDSCrowds are another mathematical issue. Take for example, the
motion created when spectators do the Ola-wave through the
stadium. There is an interesting mathematical model that goes
along with it which was developed by Gueant, Lasry and Lions
in their “Mean Field Games and Applications” framework. The
idea begins with a large number of players—in this case 80,000
spectators and a few control aspects. “The model is based on the
idea that you want to behave similar to your neighbors. So if
they get up, you also tend to get up. On the other hand, when
you sit, you are comfortable and when you stand you are also
comfortable. You don’t want to be in the middle position with
bent knees and uncomfortable, but at the same time you want to
be coordinated with what your neighbor does,” said Markowich.
The Mean Field Game developers have written down a
mathematical equation for the Ola-wave and have tested it and
it does the job. Markowich says the reason it works is because
these models are based on an averaging principle. In other words,
you have a large number of people. What each one does is not
really relevant, but what is relevant is the emerging, averaged
pattern. “The averaging process is based on complicated individual
behavioral patterns. It may not be a world-changing thing to
describe the Ola wave in a soccer stadium, but it is interesting that
using mathematics you can describe such a social phenomenon,”
said Markowich.
While the wave equation is interesting, crowd motion is a
practical and serious mathematical problem. Crowd motion in a
stadium is an unusual case as it is three dimensional. A stadium has
different entrances and levels and of course, an important question
is how do you evacuate a stadium in a fast and organized manner?
“We have examples in football stadiums where people were killed
like in the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985. It was a catastrophic
event in the crowd started by the follow the leader behavior that led
to the deaths of 39 people and 600 more injured,” said Markowich.
“Managing an evacuation is a complicated mathematical process.“
Using simulations, mathematicians try to come up with ways to
organize the behavior of people. One idea is to put a column in the
middle of exits. “You might think this is going to be detrimental as
it decreases the area of the exit, but in many cases it leads to the
organization of the crowd,” said Markowich.
He says when watching simulations, you can see that crowds
exit faster when there is an obstacle in the middle or a double
door. In these cases, an obstacle has a positive effect in organizing
the crowd motion.
ADDING PANIC TO THE EQUATIONPanic in crowd modeling is an important factor, as when setting
up the model equations, you have to discard other strategies and
predefined patterns. Markowich says you may begin with a model
based on averages, but in a crisis, patterns change catastrophically
and these can be described by so-called mathematical panic models.
“It’s not based on physics and the principles that are written in
stone, but based on our behavioral instincts which are much more
complicated,” he explained. “In the end we still write equations
which are physics-based, although the constitutive equations come
from non-physical considerations like how do humans behave.”
Which brings us back to football and why the game is so exciting
to watch. “We are enticed by the game because it’s a small model
of life. It is full of random processes just like life,” Markowich said.
It’s a random process with a drift.
In May 2014, President Jean-Lou Chameau,
Vice President James Calvin, Dean Brian Moran
and several professors led a KAUST delegation
to China. A highlight of the trip was a special
gathering, hosted by President Chameau, in
Beijing of Alumni (graduates and former post-
docs), as well as students from China who will be
joining KAUST in August.
This was the first formal gathering and
celebration of KAUST Alumni outside of the
Kingdom. It was especially exciting for President
Chameau and the faculty to meet with the
enthusiastic Alumni in China and to learn of
their significant accomplishments in the few
short years since graduation. Some of the Alumni
have become entrepreneurs and formed their
own companies, while others have joined the
professorial ranks at universities.
It was also exciting for new students to meet
KAUST Alumni from China and see how proud
the Alumni are of KAUST and the opportunities
KAUST has provided them. In recognition of
the strong and enthusiastic cohort of Alumni in
China, KAUST will be forming a working group
on the establishment of an Alumni chapter in
China in the very near future.
WHY FOOTBALL IS A RANDOM PROCESS WITH A DRIFT
KAUST ALUMNI CELEBRATION IN BEIJING HOSTED BY PRESIDENT JEAN-LOU CHAMEAU
والتقنية للعلوم عبداهلل الملك جامعة من وفد قام وعضوية الجامعة رئيس شامو جان-لو الدكتور برئاسة كل من نائب الرئيس للشؤون األكاديمية جيمس كالفين، وعميد شؤون الطالب براين موران وعدد من أعضاء هيئة
التدريس بزيارة للصين خالل شهر مايو الماضي. وتهدف هذه الزيارة إلى اإللتقاء بخريجي الجامعة الذين حصلوا على درجتي الماجستير والدكتوراه التي تمنحها ما بباحثي اإللتقاء وكذلك عبداهلل، الملك جامعة بعد الدكتوراه السابقين، باإلضافة إلى اإللتقاء بالطلبة الملك جامعة الى سينضمون الذين الجدد الصينيون
عبداهلل في شهر أغسطس الحالي.جامعة بخريجي رسميًا األول هو اللقاء هذا ويعتبر الملك عبداهلل خارج المملكة حيث إلتقى الرئيس شامو
وأعضاء الوفد بالطلبة والخريجين في الصين وتعرفوا على أعمالهم وإنجازاتها الملموسة والتي إستطاعوا تحقيقها في سنوات وجيزة بعد التخرج. كما تم خالل هذه الزيارة روادًا لألعمال الذين أصبحوا الخريجين اإللتقاء ببعض ويمتلكون شركاتهم الخاصة، بينما البعض اآلخر فضل
االنضمام إلى صفوف األساتذة في الجامعات.وكانت هذه المناسبة فرصة رائعة لطالب الجامعة الجدد كي يلتقوا بالخريجين حيث عبروا عن فخرهم بانتمائهم إلى جامعة الملك عبداهلل التي وفرت لهم هذه الفرص الكبيرة. وتشجيعًا لروح الحماس لدى خريجي الجامعة تشكيل عبداهلل الملك جامعة قررت فقد الصين، في الجامعة في مجموعة عمل إلنشاء فرع محلي لخريجي
.الصين في المستقبل القريب
الرئيس جان-لو شامو يلتقي خرجيي جامعة امللك عبداهلل يف بكني
5Newswww.kaust.edu.sa September 2014
New Ventures & Entrepreneurship hosted the 2014 Spring Seed Fund
Gala on June 4 to recognize and honor this spring’s winning Seed
Fund teams.
The KAUST Seed Fund functions as a product development funding
mechanism that helps budding entrepreneurs move their ideas
through the commercialization process and ultimately form them
into new businesses. The University aims to provide the Kingdom
with innovative startup companies leading to new jobs, and present a
successful startup model that may be used Kingdom-wide.
As Amin Al-Shibani, KAUST Vice President for Economic
Development, noted during the event: “The Seed Fund program
is geared at empowering interested faculty, research scientists,
postdoctoral fellows and students, and providing them with the space
needed as well as the seed capital to turn their ideas into successful
businesses. We recognize they are working in deep science with real
business potential.”
The Seed Fund hosts two rounds of applications for funding during
the year, one in the spring and one in the fall. This spring’s three
winning teams were drawn from a pool of 37 applications, and were
selected by a panel of judges from academia to industry. A final
selection was made by the Seed Fund Oversight Committee.
The winning teams’ project titles and members were: “I3-Waste CO2
to Commercial Products” (Dr. Jeremie Pelletier, Laboratory Manager
at Catalysis Research Center; Dr. Valerio D’Elia, Research Scientist
at Catalysis Research Center; Mr. Blake Ashwell, Center Manager
at Catalysis Research Center); “ONCOGENOMICS - Highly Accurate
Test for Early Detection of Colorectal Cancer” (Prof. Vladimir Bajic,
Director of the Computational Bioscience Research Center (CBRC); Dr
Roberto Incitti, Bioinformatician at the CBRC; Dr. Hicham Mansour,
Research Scientist in Biosciences Core Lab; Dr. Claude Hennion,
external member; Dr. Jean-Pierre Roperch, external member); and
“ZAD - Microbes to improve agriculture under drought, heat and
salinity” (Prof. Heribert Hirt, Biological Sciences and Engineering
Division (BESE); Prof. Daniele Daffonchio, BESE; Dr. Axel de Zelicourt,
postdoctoral fellow, Center for Desert Agriculture (CDA); Dr. Feras
F. Lafi, Research Scientist, CDA; Dr. Ramona Marasco, postdoctoral
fellow, Red Sea Research Center).
“It is just the beginning of the teams’ journeys,” Al-Shibani noted.
“The teams will face incredible pressure, the need to make difficult
decisions, and take risks – and all of this in addition to honoring their
dedication to their current professional and scientific engagements.”
The event featured Keynote Speaker Professor Erhan Erkut,
Founding President of Ozyegin University in
Istanbul, Turkey. Prof. Erkut discussed the
mission of the world’s new “global universities,”
which are “third-generation” universities that
must focus on commercializing technology
produced through their education and research.
“Universities are breeding grounds for
entrepreneurs,” Erkut said, “and universities today
must make a point of producing and encouraging
entrepreneurs. Through this, economic value, new
companies, and employment opportunities will
be created.” All these, he noted, are essential in
the global economy today, as the world has an
increasing need for more and better jobs for an
ever-growing workforce.
Erkut also stated that he believes KAUST has
many of the characteristics of a third-generation
university, and has the potential of becoming a
fully-fledged third-generation institution. This, he
said, will be essential to fostering economic growth and creating new
employment opportunities in Saudi Arabia, which is as essential for
the Kingdom today as it is for his home country of Turkey. “There is
the important need,” he stated, “to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem
in our respective countries.”
The event concluded with the Seed Fund winning teams presenting
their innovative business ideas through a series of short videos and
presentations. The teams then had a chance to network with event
visitors from academia and industry.
The Seed Fund is led by Nicola Bettio, who has recently joined
KAUST and who has been managing a venture capital fund in Europe
for the last 13 years. Saifuddin Tajuddin Mohamed, another new hire
with long experience in entrepreneurial ventures in North America,
is managing the Fund portfolio. Other members of the team include
Osman Sayeed, Award Financial Administrator; Amal Dokhan, Project
Coordinator; and Ozden Yurtseven, Pre-Award Specialist.
The Seed Fund team is always ready to meet people with novel
business ideas to discuss their projects and investigate how to
commercialize them. For further information and to schedule a
one-on-one meeting, contact the Seed Fund team at seed.fund@
kaust.edu.sa.
SEED FUND SPRING GALA 2014 UNVEILS THREE WINNING STARTUP PROJECTS
Seed Fund spring 2014 winners pose with members of the Seed Fund team during the Spring Gala 2014.
of people who will take the results and be curious
enough to go forward and find the real beauty of
it,” said Nunes, Professor of Environmental Science
and Engineering.
Using their combined experience with block
copolymers and self-assembly, the team utilized
what they knew to learn something they didn’t.
When the initial results were not as planned, they
continued to explore to see what happened. Taking
the chance on waiting was worth it. “They found
a nice biomaterial application. Then investigated
why this structure is that way and not in the way
we expected it to produce,” Nunes said.
Their results were published in Nature
Communicat ion in May (DOI 10.1038/
ncomms5110). The paper explains how they found
a simple way to fabricate microspheres through
block copolymer self-assembly. The particles they
found are able to act as pH-responsive gates and
have a highly porous infrastructure, which allows
them to have ultrahigh protein sorption capacity.
It was the first time this simple strategy to fabricate
micrometer-sized spheres with complexed porous
order and gated nanopores by BCP self-assembly
had been reported.
A WINNING DIVERSIFIED TEAMFor over a year, the team had been working on this
block copolymer research with an interest in self-
assembly. “We always want to develop structures
which can do new types of polymer separations –
separations that are difficult to do. This is our main
goal,” explained Peinemann, Professor of Chemical
and Biological Engineering.
With this particular project, they took a powder
from a polymer and stirred in it different organic
solvents. As they stirred it, the structures formed
and changed over time. “In the end, we made quite
interesting particles. We are trying to learn from
nature and are using the principle of self-assembly
like nature does,” Peinemann said.
The particles the team found contained attributes
that could be useful in biotechnology, medicine and
catalysis applications. They were able to separate
specific proteins by electrostatic interaction or by
size. The particles were also able to absorb these
proteins. “Another potential application for the
particle is the control and release of certain proteins.
For example, they may perhaps be loaded with a
drug and injected into the body that then slowly
release the drug,” Peinemann said.
But this discovery might have not occurred
without the dynamics of the team involved. They
say without their mix of expertise, they may not
have immediately seen the potential in the initial
structures. Nor would they have realized how time
would have changed the shape of the particles.
As members of KAUST’s Advanced Membranes
& Porous Materials Center and Water Desalination
and Reuse Center, Peinemann has decades of
experience creating large-scale membranes,
while Yu is experienced in block copolymers and
Nunes’ specialty is in membranes and polymer
thermodynamics. But it was Xiaoyan Qiu’s
expertise in proteins and biology that gave them
the breakthrough they needed.
“When I looked at the structure, I looked at it as a
chemist. But because her background is in biology,
Xiaoyan saw things differently. When she looked at
it, she said it looked like biomaterials,” said Yu.
Qiu’s knowledge gave the chemistry and
membrane team insight from a new perspective. She
noted when looking at the pore size, that it might
be suitable to separate something like proteins. And
because the pores were so regular, they were not only
able to separate proteins, but ones with almost equal
molecule weight.
LOOKING TO NATURE FOR FUTURE MEMBRANE SOLUTIONS
Currently, many groups are looking at natural
structures and trying to mimic what they can do.
Nunes says their case is unique as the structure is
completely porous. It can absorb the protein similar
to how it would work in nature. “It’s the way many
of our own organs work. We, ourselves, are in a way
a self-assembly. This is amazing to get this structure
just by mixing without a planned specific design
or probing. You have an order that is happening
spontaneously,” she said.
The team said they are trying to learn from these
biological channels as they are much more effective
than artificial channels. This research was one of
their ways to approach it, but other groups around
the world are trying different things.
“We—and I mean the scientific groups around
world—are in a state of development where we can
afford to explore much more complex mechanisms of
transport,” said Nunes. “I think with all the knowledge
we now have on membranes, it’s time to go a step
forward and mimic some of the special biological
channels that allow for complex separation.”
تقول الدكتورة سوزانا نونيس، أستاذة العلوم هذه في شدني ما "أكثر : البيئية والهندسة التجربة، هو حقيقة أن معظم الباحثين عندما ثم أبحاثهم في متقدمة مرحلة إلى يصلون هو ما عن تماما مغايرة النتائج أن يكتشفون يتوقفون الحاالت معظم في فإنهم متوقع يكن لم األمر .ولكن والمحاولة. البحث عن والدكتور يو للدكتور هايشياو بالنسبة كذلك المجتهدين العلماء من فهم كوي. زياويان مواصلة عن النتائج غرابة تثنيهم ال الذين يكفي جمياًل علميًا فضواًل ويمتلكان البحث لدفع نتائج البحث إلى األمام والخروج بأشياء
جديدة منه". مجال في خبراتهم باستخدام الفريق وتمكن المحاكاة البيولوجية لكتلة جسيمات كوبوليمر علم على يكونوا لم أشياء على التعرف من لما مخالفة األولية النتائج كانت فعندما بها. البحث في الفريق استمر الفريق، يتوقعه كان يحدث. أن يمكن ما لمعرفة واالستكشاف وكان قراره في المواصلة واالنتظار يستحق كل "اكتشفوا نونيس: الدكتورة قالت العناء. هذا جسيمات مادة بيولوجية ذات تركيب فريد. ثم ولماذا هي الجسيمات بنية هذه بدراسة قاموا
مغايرة عن ما كانوا يتوقعونه". ووجد الفريق أن هذه الجسيمات تمتلك خصائص مفيدة و لها تطبيقات عديدة في مجاالت مختلفة مثل التقنية الحيوية والطب والحفز. كما استطاعوا الكهربائية بالتفاعل محددة بروتينات فصل على قادرة الجسيمات هذه أن وتبين الساكن امتصاص هذه البروتينات. يقول الدكتور بينيمان قدرتها هو الجسيمات تطبيقات هذه إحدى " :البروتينات. حيث بإطالق التحكم الكبيرة على يمكنها حمل العقاقير الطبية وإطالقها في مجرى
."الدم داخل الجسم بفاعلية
DIVERSITY | Continued from p1 تتمة الصفحة األولى:
THE UNIVERSITY celebrated the Spring 2014 graduation of 11
Ph.D. and 20 master’s degree candidates at a special graduation
luncheon on June 7.
The graduating students came from nine different countries,
including Saudi Arabia, China, Mexico, Pakistan and France, and
were joined by members of their families for the ceremony in the
University Library.
“We are all here to celebrate you,” said KAUST President
Jean-Lou Chameau in his remarks at the ceremony.
President Chameau noted the graduates had seen many
successes—and some failures—while completing their
research, but that this journey was essential, adding to
their character, ingenuity and creativity.
“Through all of this,” he said, “you deepened your
knowledge, contributed to new research and extended
KAUST’s influence in the world. You deserve our gratitude
and our highest accolades for your achievements.”
A number of KAUST professors added their
congratulations during the ceremony, advising the
graduates to aim high and always search for opportunities
to grow in their personal and professional lives.
“You should always strive to set the bar high so
everyone not only recognizes you, but also the fact that
you are from KAUST,” said Dr. Muhammad Mustafa
Hussain, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering.
“We look forward to hearing from you in the
coming years and celebrating new achievements and
milestones as you take the values of KAUST into the
world,” President Chameau said at the conclusion
of the ceremony. He thanked King Abdullah Bin
Abdulaziz Al Saud for his generosity in giving the graduates
the “great gift” of their educations, and noted that “through
his vision, you are now empowered to be great scientists,
engineers and leaders.”
Research6 The BeaconSeptember 2014
SPRING 2014 GRADUATION CEREMONY HONORS 31 GRADUATING STUDENTS
As KAUST prepares to celebrate its five-year anniversary, the
community has a plethora of milestones to celebrate, not to mention
more than a few infamous events to look back on. Interestingly, a
natural disaster is the basis for ongoing, interdisciplinary research
at the University. Shortly after the University’s inauguration, over
140 millimeters of rain flooded much of the Jeddah region within a
mere eight hours, causing more than 100 fatalities and over $100M in
damage to area property and infrastructure.
“All this rain coming at the same time, in a matter of few hours,
meant the water had nowhere to go; so it went into the streets,” said
KAUST’s Ibrahim Hoteit, Associate Professor of Earth Sciences and
Engineering and Principal Investigator of the Earth Fluid Modeling
and Prediction group. Flash floods present a particular challenge in
arid areas with limited sewage systems.
“When it rains the water remains and it doesn’t get absorbed,”
said Hoteit. “We’re trying to reconstruct the rain event that happened
during the 2009 flood using modeling.”
He points to an impressive computerized model of Jeddah
on his monitor, capturing over 60,000 buildings, complete with
surrounding mountains and estimated paths taken by the water as
it flooded the city.
In an effort to build forecasting models meant to predict extreme
marine and weather events, Hoteit and his group observe the ocean
and the atmosphere. For any model to be effective, it’s important to
complement it with actual data from the whole region.
“In order to get a local model at the level of Jeddah, we first
go from very large-scale MENA-wide models all the way down to
a few hundred meters on Jeddah,” Hoteit outlined. To obtain the
MENA (Middle East & North Africa) region data, his team used
data from satellites and international sources.
As they eventually zoomed in over the Jeddah region, the local
data was sourced from PME (Presidency of Meteorology and
Environment). The data collected is then used to complement and
guide the atmospheric and weather models employed to forecast.
“We can predict these events one or two days in advance. So
we can greatly improve the prediction of these events and issue
appropriate warnings,” said Hoteit.
It’s important however to keep in mind that these models are
not certain. They are estimates of probability. “The question is
how good the estimate is,” said Hoteit. Many variables come
into play such as seasonality and various other observable
variables.
“What can be done is to form a database from simulations
based on known data,” Hoteit clarified. By assimilating known
data from various sources, the simulations are made to be as
accurate as possible, with an estimate of uncertainty. “The data
pushes the model toward the truth,” he emphasized.
These sophisticated models, taking into account uncertainties,
are achieved through highly multidisciplinary work involving
various teams at KAUST. Hoteit relies heavily on his
collaboration with the visualization and supercomputing teams.
“Visualization is important for us because people usually don’t
understand these things. But when you show them visually, they
start appreciating what we do,” explained Hoteit.
Working with data sets collected from Saudi Aramco, from
PME, as well as from satellite data, KAUST was able to develop
a 14-year model (from the years 2000 to 2014) of atmospheric
conditions over the Red Sea at a 10-kilometer resolution—one of
the highest of its kind in the world.
This atmospheric model also allows Hoteit’s group to work
on mapping the history of the waves in the Red Sea. “Once you
have the atmosphere, you can go down and simulate the rest.
We want to trace the history of everything that happened in
the Red Sea from both the oceanic and atmospheric points of
view” said Hoteit.
Understanding the behavior of ocean currents is also of vital
importance to develop a comprehensive picture to predict the
Red Sea’s physics and even biology. By assimilating data, Hoteit’s
group seeks to provide real-time “nowcasting” and forcasting
models for the Red Sea. This involves the long-term monitoring
and studying of fundamental processes in the Red Sea such as
cyclonic recirculation.
The group has, for instance, observed that the currents of
the Red Sea turn differently in the summer than they do in
the winter. “This has a very important impact on the biology,”
Hoteit explained. “It regulates and changes the food supply and
nutrients for the fish and corals. You cannot study the biology
without the currents. There is no way.”
KAUST scientists also observed that, due to heat and wind, the
Red Sea experiences a lot of evaporation. It loses around two
meters of water per year. It’s actually supplied back by water from
the Indian Ocean—a process known as overturning.
INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONSDetailed information about the Red Sea’s current circulation and
atmosphere is not only important for purely scientific reasons—it
has direct applications for industry. One specific example offered
by Hoteit is an oil company wanting to consult real-time current
circulation models in order to determine optimal drilling areas
for the purpose of mitigating the risk of spill propagation in the
event of an accident.
Using KAUST’s visualization and supercomputing resources,
Hoteit can produce a real-time model of the sea currents, before
the design is complete, to inform the company on where to drill.
The company may have certain conditions such as water speed
of less than 1 meter per second. Through the clicking or hovering
of a mouse, the computerized model can offer various points in
the sea map offering these specific conditions, as informed by the
underlying data sets.
An important project at KAUST, led by Burton Jones (Marine
Science), is a Marine Environmental research center. Jones’ group
is developing an observatory for the Red Sea. In partnership with
Saudi Aramco, their goal is to facilitate long-term monitoring
of the Red Sea. This strategic partnership also serves to help
minimize environmental impact in the areas of the Red Sea where
Saudi Aramco operates and aims to increase the sustainability of
the energy sector in the Kingdom.
Hoteit’s team works closely with this project, providing vital
models for the operation of autonomous robotic gliders deployed
in the Red Sea on observational survey missions. Since these
gliders operate at a speed of one meter per second, real-time
data about the speed and direction of Red Sea currents is vital. If
water is moving past the glider in the opposite direction it will go
backwards, stalling operational progress. To help mitigate these
challenges, the center could be provided with a 10-day forecast
accessible on the web in real-time.
“It’s thanks to a combination of high-performance computing,
visualization and physics,” said Hoteit. “Really, no other
institution has access to this type of technology.”
KAUST SCIENTISTS DEVELOPING MODELS TO PREDICT EXTREME EVENTS
“SOLID-state materials that have been designed and constructed in
a made-to-order manner may provide potential solutions to many
present-day challenges in energy and environmental sustainability,”
explained Dr. Mohamed Eddaoudi, KAUST Professor of Chemical
Science and Associate Director of the University’s Advanced
Membranes and Porous Materials Research Center. “However, it is
very difficult to design these materials, as their assembly is done in
a one-step synthesis.”
Eddaoudi’s Functional Materials Design, Discovery and Development
(FMD3) research group concentrates on developing strategies to
permit the design of solid-state materials and the control of their
functionality. In particular, the researchers focus on introducing
certain specific properties and functionalities at the design stage prior
to assembly in pre-selected molecular building blocks (MBBs).
The group's research concentrates on metal-organic
frameworks (MOFs), a promising class of modular solid-state
materials, because MOFs can be constructed by the assembly-of-
predefined-MBBs approach.
“It is possible to mutually control the porous structure of MOFs
and their composition and functionality,” said Dr. Vincent Guillerm,
a post-doctoral fellow in Eddaoudi’s FMD3 group. “In our group,
we look for novel, highly connected MBBs and their transposition
into nets with high connectivity.”
“Targeting high-connectivity MBBs will reduce the number of
possible outcome nets and will therefore be of great help on the
road to the rational design of porous materials,” noted Eddaoudi.
In a paper recently published in Nature Chemistry (DOI: 10.1038/
NCHEM.1982), the group discovered and isolated highly connected
polynuclear clusters which are used as MBBs in the synthesis of
MOFs. In particular, they discovered and formed a new rare earth (RE)
nonanuclear carboxylate-based cluster ([RE]9(μ-OH)8(μ2-OH)3(O2C-
)18],(RE=Y, Tb, Er, Eu)), which was then used as an 18-connected
MBB to form a gea-MOF (gea-MOF-1) based on an unprecedented
(3,18)-connected net. “gea” stands for “Guillerm, Eddaoudi net A.”
“We then utilized the gea net as a blueprint to design and assemble
another MOF, called gea-MOF-2,” explained Dr. Guillerm. “In gea-
MOF-2, the 18-connected RE clusters are replaced by metal-organic
polyhedra which have been peripherally functionalized to have
the same connectivity as the RE clusters. The
metal-organic polyhedra act as supermolecular
building blocks, or SBBs, when they form
gea-MOF-2.”
“This required the challenging synthesis
of a very specific, asymmetric, trefoil
organic ligand,” noted Dr. Łukasz Weselinski,
postdoctoral fellow in the FMD3 group and
second author of the paper.
“The discovery of a (3,18)-connected MOF
followed by the deliberate transposition of
its topology to a predesigned second MOF
with a different chemical system validates
the prospective rational design of MOFs,”
Eddaoudi said. “Here we have shown that the
rational design of MOFs is indeed a reality,
thanks to the SBB approach.”
The research team also examined the catalytic
activity of gea-MOF-1 and found Vthat it is
catalytically active and has great potential for
hydrocarbon separation. “We found that it can
serve as an excellent recoverable catalyst for
the solvent-free synthesis of carbonates under
mild conditions,” explained Dr. Valerio D’Elia,
Research Scientist from the KAUST Catalysis
Center (KCC) and a co-author of the paper.
“Our work also revealed that gea-MOF-1 can
be employed as a C3H8/CH4 and n-C4H10/CH4
separation agent for natural gas upgrading
because of its high affinity for C3H8 and
n-C4H10 versus CH4 and CO2,” Dr. Youssef
Belmabkhout, co-author of the paper and
research scientist in the FMD3 group, noted.
The researchers state that finding new
nets that can be used as blueprints is
becoming increasingly rare today, as many
nets have already been predicted. “Our
novel (3,18)-connected gea net has a great
potential to be systematically targeted through the MBB or SBB
approach for the synthesis of made-to-order MOFs for specific
applications,” says Dr. Guillerm.
Eddaoudi hopes that through the team’s research, others will
realize the use of geometry and topology is often underestimated in
solid-state materials design. “Use of this is critical if one wants to
achieve made-to-order materials for specific applications,” he said.
In addition, he notes that the group’s work “also highlights the great
potential of MOFs for hydrocarbon separation, a feature which has
barely been explored so far.”
Research 7www.kaust.edu.sa September 2014
Image credit: Prof. M
ohamed Eddaoudi and Dr. Vincent G
uillerm.
MATERIALS BEYOND: KAUST SCIENTISTS PUT SOLID STATE MATERIALS DESIGN MYTH TO REST
to adapt to these new realities. The plants and crops currently
produced will have a hard time surviving.
“The problem is that meeting our future challenges will require
that we increase food production by about 50%. With the current
crops that we have we cannot do that. So the question is how can
we achieve this?” As Hirt further elaborates, “We need to actually
improve their performance under these heightened drought and
heat conditions.”
COUNTERING ADVERSE ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS WITH NATURAL MICROBES
There are two ways to do this. One way is to experiment with
genetic engineering to improve crops. The other way is to promote
the use of natural microbes. Hirt is exploring answers that can
be found through the capabilities of microbes. The upcoming
conference will particularly focus on rhizosphere microbes.
Environmental conditions, even more than the negative impact
of insects or bad microbes eating up the plants, is in fact the major
limiting factor in plant productivity. The particularity of rhizosphere
microbes is that they can increase plants’ abiotic stress tolerance
(caused by heat, drought, and salt). All plants can adapt at some
level to environmental changes but the more they are associated
with these rhizosphere microbes, the greater their stress tolerance is.
The rhizosphere (from the Greek word “rhiza”, meaning root), is
a soil area around a plant’s roots where microorganisms directly
interact with secretions or chemicals released by the plant’s roots.
As Hirt explained, in the past 15 years, thanks to sequencing
technologies, scientists have come to realize that the soil is the
richest source of microbes in the world. “People now have gotten
more and more interested, also through this technology, in the use
of microbes to help plants grow,” Hirt explained.
MAKING CURRENT PLANTS BETTERDrought conditions alone are responsible for up to 60% of
harvest losses, according to Hirt. “Our concept is not to have plants
that grow bigger and faster, it’s actually to preserve the capacity
of current crops to fruitfully produce without dying off due to a
drought period.”
We have evidence right here at KAUST of plants growing in the
seawater with the surrounding mangroves and other vegetation
growing along the shores of the Red Sea. “They are basically
drinking seawater,” said Hirt. “So the question is how do they do
that? How can they live on that?”
Since this vegetation proves that it’s possible to actually use
seawater to grow crops, it means that we might be able to help
current crops to do the same.
“I’ve been working on plant stress biology for 25 years, with a
focus on abiotic stress,” said Hirt. In recent years, he came across
an example of a remarkable fungus from a desert in Pakistan with
the unique ability to interact with any kind of plant species—crops,
cereals, and others to make them strongly resistant to drought
stress.
This discovery gave Dr. Hirt the strong impression that there must
exist other microbial organisms around the world that can do this.
AN INTERNATIONAL PROJECT TO DISCOVER THE DESERTS OF THE WORLD
“Nobody has really gone in-depth to identify those microbes,”
said Hirt. So he thought that KAUST would be an ideal place
to pursue desert research. The Desert Rhizosphere Microbes
Conference is the kickoff for an international collaboration,
helmed by Hirt and his colleague—extreme environments
microbiologist Dr. Daniele Daffonchio—to go into different
deserts of the world. With the collaboration of KAUST's Center
for Bioinformatics (CBRC), this program will foster transnational
collaborations among several institutions in Oman, the United
Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Jordan, as well as African and South
American states.
Aiming to become a global knowledge base of desert rhizosphere
microbes, the DARWIN21 project was inspired by the scientific
voyages undertaken by Charles Darwin, aboard the HMS Beagle,
in the 19th century. This project now aspires to complete a similar
voyage of discovery in the 21st century. The DARWIN21 project will
go about exploring the various deserts on the planet and study the
plants and microbes that grow there.
Saudi Arabia is an ideal place for prospecting different types of
deserts since, as Hirt pointed out, “we already have very different
types of deserts in Saudi Arabia: inland deserts, salty ones, less
salty ones—so there are very different conditions.”
His group of international scientists, many of whom will be
present at KAUST for the conference, are seeking answers as to how
these desert plants are able to survive. Are there different microbes
that help them do that? What are the distinguishing factors tied to
these microbes?
“We’ve got the tools to analyze spots on Earth that are yet to be
discovered,” said Hirt. “I think KAUST can be a great incubator to
make this happen.”.
USING SCIENCE TO FEED | Continued from p1
Prof. Mohamed Eddaoudi’s Functional Materials Design, Discovery & Development group (FMD3) discovered a special minimal edge transitive net with high connectivity, pictured here. The image illustrates its use as a blueprint for the design and construction of metal organic frameworks (MOFs). The (3,18)-connected blueprint and the supermolecular building block (SBB) approach enabled the deliberate design and synthesis of a novel MOF.
Community8 The Beacon
MARÍA FERNANDA Ph.D. candidate María Fernanda Contreras
Gerenas has fully embraced all that KAUST
has to offer in her five years here. Active
in many pursuits, she is a former member
of the KAUST female football club. “It was
a nice experience. I got to share with the girls, participate in a
tournament, and improve my football skills,” she notes. Maria
hasn’t stopped with football, however. In addition to frequently
playing tennis and swimming, she earned her PADI diver’s
certification, and then completed the advanced diver’s course.
“KAUST offers a pretty high life quality. In terms of recreational
facilities and travel opportunities, it is a nice place to be.”
Maria received her master’s in Bioscience, and then decided
to stay on to pursue her Ph.D., also in Bioscience. As she notes,
“I did my bachelor’s thesis in biophysics and my bachelor’s
degree was in physics. I wanted to learn biology, which I did
during my masters. Now during my Ph.D., I am combining the
two disciplines in a potential biomedical application.” Working
under the guidance of Timothy Ravasi and Jürgen Kosel, Maria
now finds that she is often the mentor, affirming, “My Ph.D.
research topic has drawn the attention of master’s students who
are doing their theses in topics related to it. I taught them the
basics of cell culture, and then they were able to be independent
in their own lab work.”
Born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, Maria earned her
bachelor’s degree in physics from the National University of
Colombia (Bogotá), and has done internships at the Membrane
Engineering Lab of The University of California at Davis (U.S.),
and at the Laboratory of Materials and Low Temperatures at
the University of Campinas (Brazil). A recipient of the KAUST
Academic Excellence Award, Maria’s research is profound in both
complexity and in its potential.
“KAUST has been more than just a university to me. Here
I have found life-long friendships, and I found the love of
my life - to whom I got married around year and a half ago.
Being at KAUST has also allowed me to travel to locations
that previously seemed unreachable, and that I have never
thought I would visit at my young age. Last but not least,
KAUST has provided me with everything I need to fulfill my
professional goals - nice research facilities, personnel, and
working environment.”.
NATHANIEL ROBINSONTexas-born Nathaniel Robinson has been
around – including some ups and some
downs, noting, “I’ve been fortunate to
survive a series of events - from cancer to
sinking a kayak in the Artic Sea and then
swimming for my life to the shore. Interesting things seem to
happen to me. So if I’m on your snorkeling trip you may want
to think about rebooking; but on the positive side, I’ve made it
through all of them with memories to hold.” And many stories to
tell, it sounds.
Nate (as he prefers), has lived across the United States from
Alaska to Florida, and spent time in Peru, Mexico, and Oman –
before making it to KAUST. “I enjoy being able to expand my
views, approaches to projects and challenges, and a diversity of
experiences. KAUST offers the opportunity for each of those. I’d
like to see more of the world and learn more languages, which is
also something KAUST can help to achieve,” he said.
With degrees in engineering, technology management,
economics and finance, Nate brings his considerable resume and
experience as manager of the Advanced Engagement and Support
Department, within Saudi Initiatives, asserting, “I like to think
that I bring a nice diversity to any position. Having worked in
education, engineering, business development, and management,
it provides me a variety of angles to solve problems, establish
processes, and so on.”
In his spare time, Nate enjoys all types of music and enjoys
reading. However, it doesn’t sound like he spends too much time
on the couch. As fit as any man half his age, Nate used to train in
mixed martial arts (MMA), and now works at boxing, plyometrics
and strength training. He loves competitive sports, adding, “I
used to play goalkeeper in football/soccer in college, then later
in city leagues in the USA and Mexico.” At KAUST, Nate offers
his expertise to anyone up for the challenge, providing physical
training, strength training and conditioning..
MY UNIVERSITY
September 2014
For Jawaher Almutlaq, Abdulmohsen AlBelushi,
Shahd Bawarith, and Yousef Alowayed, conducting
research at KAUST this summer as part of the
KAUST Gifted Student Program (KGSP) has been
an unparalleled opportunity for academic and
personal growth.
KGSP sponsors academically gifted Saudi
students earning undergraduate degrees in science
and engineering subjects at universities in the
United States and prepares them for eventual
matriculation at KAUST. A major component of the
program is the opportunity for students to conduct
research at KAUST during their undergraduate
studies. This year, 43 students are carrying out
summer research at KAUST.
“My summer has certainly been enjoyable,” said
Yousef, who will be a junior at MIT in the coming
academic year, and who has been working with
Assistant Professor Osman Bakr on developing
solar cells. “It has been great to get a feel of the
different kinds of research going on at KAUST
before coming back here for my master’s degree.
And I have really learned a lot.”
“KAUST is wonderful,” agreed Jawaher, who
worked with Assistant Professor Iman Roqan
to study the optical properties and structure of
gadolinium (Gd)-doped zinc oxide thin films, which
are used in many applications, including solar
cells and biosensors. “I previously worked with
metal alloys at my home university, Pennsylvania
State University, so my research at KAUST was a
good opportunity to explore a different class of
materials,” she said.
Jawaher will complete her bachelor’s degree in
Materials Science and Engineering next year, and
plans to study Nanotechnology at KAUST for her
master’s degree.
Shahd, who studies Bioengineering at
George Mason University, has been working
with Professor Klaus-Viktor Peinemann in the
Advanced Membranes & Porous Materials Center
(AMPM), where she has learned how to produce
composite membranes.
“I don’t think I could have done this kind
of cutting-edge research with such amazing
professors and so much support anywhere else,”
said Shahd, who will be a sophomore in the next
academic year. “I originally wanted to study law
in university, but now I definitely feel a future in
science is worthwhile.”
Abdulmohsen says he discovered a new field to
explore during his summer working with Associate
Professor Ravi Samtaney in the Fluid and Plasma
Simulation Laboratory. “My research at KAUST has
made me interested in a new area, computational
fluid mechanics,” he explained. He will be a senior
in the autumn at Johns Hopkins University, where
he is majoring in Mechanical Engineering.
“I am definitely excited to return to KAUST for
my master’s degree,” he said. “In the future, I hope
to go for a PhD so I can work in the research field.”
“Knowledge gained from textbooks and in
classrooms is important,” noted Jawaher, “but it
is not enough. My summer research at KAUST
has enabled me to understand my major better,
and I feel that opportunities like this provided
through KGSP will make it easier to contribute
to the advancement of science and technology
in the development of my country. That is my
greatest motivation.”
KGSP is administered by KAUST’s Saudi
Initiatives organization. Now in its fifth year, the
program cultivates the next generation of Saudi
leaders in science, research, and innovation.
KGSP STUDENTS CONDUCT INSPIRING SUMMER RESEARCH AT KAUST
Victor M. Calo, Dr. Mohamed Eddaoudi, and Dr. Heribert Hirt.
“Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers 2014” is an
authoritative listing of the world’s preeminent scientific minds
and noteworthy intellects. Those who appear have passed a
stringent set of criteria. Researchers who are considered and
evaluated have written the greatest number of reports found to
be highly cited by their peers. Those who make the final listing
rank among the top 1% of most cited researchers for their subject
field and year of publication.
KAUST Vice President of Research, Dr. Jean M.J. Frechet was
noted for his contributions in Chemistry.
Dr. Victor M. Calo, an Associate Professor of Earth Sciences and
Engineering, was honored in the Computer Science classification.
Associate Director of Advanced Membranes and Porous
Materials, Dr. Mohamed Eddaoudi, was also recognized in
Chemistry. His work with the Advanced Membranes and Porous
Materials Center team was also honored in Thompson Reuters’
book, “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds 2014.”
Dr. Heribert Hirt, Professor of Bioscience and the Associate
Director of the Center for Desert Agriculture, was honored for his
work in the category of Plant and Animal Science.
HIGHLY CITED RESEARCHERS | Continued from p1
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