Everything we have is made up of millions of molecules. We often look at these as things as scientists can only use and understand, but we also once thought this way about computers and now nearly every home has one. Frank Leibfarth, an MIT fellow, discusses how polymers could be the next computing revolution.

Frank grew up on the banks of the Missouri River in Yankton, South Dakota. He attended the University of South Dakota for his undergraduate education, majoring in both chemistry and physics and graduating summa cum laude in 2008. He began his graduate studies in chemistry in 2008 at University of California Santa Barbara under the direction of Prof. Craig J. Hawker. At UCSB, Frank developed simple yet powerful methods that improve the properties and function of plastic surfaces.

In 2013 Frank received his Ph.D. and moved to Boston where he began working as an NSF funded postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Timothy F. Jamison at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At MIT, Frank is building machines that will automate the synthesis of complex molecules. These technologies hold revolutionary potential to remove chemical synthesis as a bottleneck for scientists working in diverse fields such as medicinal chemistry, nanotechnology, polymer science, and cancer therapy.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx