The Cluster “Materials for Life” is exploring new, intelligent materials and material systems that have complex, multifaceted sensor and actuator functions meant to address issues of adaptation, self-monitoring and self-regulation of medical therapies. The complexity of this profile of requirements for new in vivo applications is met by the Cluster’s originality and boldness. The Cluster’s importance for this field of research lies in its ability to apply these new material systems in a way that enables continual observation and treatment of critical health problems. Such systems will improve patients’ mobility and independence while providing complex information about their medical conditions. The Cluster is making a cutting-edge contribution to the next developmental stage in ambient assisted living.
Intense, high-quality interdisciplinary cooperation is an essential characteristic of the research. The combination of basic and applied research creates ideal conditions for developing new, multifunctional materials useful in the desired applications. Bottom-up and top-down approaches are utilized and broadly intertwined. Integrating these intelligent materials into multifunctional medical implants and probes will facilitate better diagnosis, options for treatment, and prevention of illnesses – illnesses for which assessment of and improvement in the patients’ overall state of health would otherwise be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.