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Bio-inspired Solar Energy

A day in the lab with Alán Aspuru-Guzik

By: Liz Beddall
6 Jun, 2023

Alán Aspuru-Guzik is the Lebovic Fellow and Program Co-Director of the Bio-inspired Solar Energy program at CIFAR, and a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute. His work is ambitious: he aims to accelerate the discovery of new chemicals and materials that are useful to society by means of new technologies such as quantum computing, machine learning and automation. His research group, the Matter Lab, blends the work of a "dry lab" (a laboratory for applied analysis and computation) at University of Toronto's Department of Computer Science, and a "wet lab" (a lab for more high-risk experiments like manipulating chemical and biological matter) housed in the university's Lash Miller Chemical Laboratories building. We followed Aspuru-Guzik for a day as he moved between the two research spaces.

Photo of Alán Aspuru-Guzik’s hand pointing to a robotic arm Photo de la main d'Alán Aspuru-Guzik pointant un bras robotisé

Alán starts his day at the ‘dry lab’. "I live here," he jokes. He demonstrates the capabilities of one of his lab’s robots. "The ability to see and recognize things is a much more complex process than you might imagine,” he notes. “This robot is unique because it doesn’t matter where the glass is, it knows how to pick it up and pour.”

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Photo of Alán Aspuru-Guzik standing behind a window covered in equations, picture labeled 3 Photo d'Alán Aspuru-Guzik debout derrière une fenêtre couverte d'équations, photo étiquetée 3
Photo of Alán Aspuru-Guzik sitting in front of a computer at a desk with a bookshelf behind him Photo d'Alán Aspuru-Guzik assis devant un ordinateur à un bureau avec une étagère derrière

ABOVE: On a shelf in his office, Alán proudly displays brightly adorned red and white boots. “I grew up in Mexico,” he says. “The day I got tenure at Harvard, my Mexican grad students bought me these boots. They’re called dragon boots and they’re for dancing.”

LEFT: "CIFAR was very important for my recruitment to Canada as part of a network of researchers,” shares Alán, when asked about his work. “Not long after I arrived, I became a Canada CIFAR AI Chair which has allowed me to have the resources to interact and work with many computer scientists.”

Photo of Alán Aspuru-Guzik walking down a street, pictured labeled 4 Photo d'Alán Aspuru-Guzik marchant dans une rue, photo étiquetée 4

Alán starts his day at the ‘dry lab’. "I live here," he jokes. He demonstrates the capabilities of one of his lab’s robots. "The ability to see and recognize things is a much more complex process than you might imagine,” he notes. “This robot is unique because it doesn’t matter where the glass is, it knows how to pick it up and pour.”

Photo of a hand wearing a purple glove holds a tube in front of lab equipment, picture labeled 5 Photo d'une main portant un gant violet tenant une fiole devant de l'équipement de laboratoire, photo étiquetée 5

Over in the wet lab, Alán dons a white lab coat and safety gloves. "What you’re looking at is a chemical reactor — a self-driving lab for chemistry,” he explains. “We make several molecules at once. This lab does the real chemistry, while the other lab is thinking about the chemistry of the future."

Photo of Alán Aspuru-Guzik wearing purple gloves holds a light up to a tube filled with liquid Photo d'Alán Aspuru-Guzik portant des gants violets et tenant une lumière devant une fiole rempli de liquide

Amid lowlight, Alán demonstrates a magnificent fluorescent reaction. "These are actual organic laser molecules, some of the brightest molecules that fluoresce in the world — we hold the record for making them."

Photo of Tubes filled with liquid sitting among lab equipment Photo de fioles remplies de liquide au milieu d'équipement de laboratoire

As the tour ends, he shares some of the ambition of his work. "This is a station that is testing molecules for organic batteries,” he notes. “We want to create the next generation of batteries to store the entirety of the world’s energy."

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