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Wendy Shaw, PhD
Director, Physical Sciences Division
Wendy Shaw, PhD
Director, Physical Sciences Division
Biography
Fuel cells and renewable energy both involve exploring catalysts, which are molecules that speed up chemical reactions. Since nature has already spent millions of years perfecting these natural catalysts, biophysical chemist Wendy Shaw sees no reason to reinvent the wheel for energy and industry uses. Her biomimicry approach earned her an early career research award from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
"For me, it's really being inspired by nature," said Shaw, "and understanding how nature does what it does so that we can ultimately learn from that and implement it in ways that are relevant to humans."
One natural catalyst, formate dehydrogenase, can turn the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide into a fuel, such as formate. In turn, formate can also store electrons until they are needed for electricity. Mixing and matching pieces of an artificial formate dehydrogenase, Shaw is working out which are the most important parts to improve its efficiency. Engineering robust and productive catalysts are key to mastering renewable energy. Learning from catalysts could also help convert simple gases such as carbon dioxide or methane into recyclable building blocks for plastics. Her group is also using virtual reality to explore the inside of a catalyst.
In addition to her work for DOE, Shaw also has long-standing National Institutes of Health funding to study how teeth are formed with the help of proteins such as amelogenin.
She is currently directing a research initiative to explore materials useful for building a quantum computer and ultimately to use quantum computing to, in turn, make more efficient catalysts.
"What might take a billion years on a regular computer to figure out the electronic structure of the metals within enzymes, might only take 30 days on the quantum computer," Shaw said. “We are excited to put them to the test to see how far they can go."
She serves on the editorial board of Biophysical Journal and the organizing committee for the International Hydrogenase Conference.
More Information
Watch Wendy Shaw talk about her work on natural catalysts for renewable energy for Northwest Science magazine (2:58), and virtual reality app developed in her lab/division that takes researchers on a 3-D tour of a catalyst. (1:20)