In the media: Daniela Kraft in Academic Stories about nanoparticle robots
Daniela Kraft speaks to Academic Stories about self-assembling soft matter, nanorobots, the importance of female rodels in science, and the unique freedom and support that Leiden University provides.
“The ultimate dream is to use nanoparticles to build little robots that we can send into the body to deliver drugs or repair cells.. You’d have arms connected by these joints and hinges and it would be driven by a motor particle. We could send these little robots to specific points in the body and have them deliver drugs or repair cells. It sounds really far away, and a complex robot is far away, but we have motor particles, we have these hinges, and we can put them together. So the simplest way of doing it is actually reasonably within reach.”
“The department knows that it can be tough, so they give you tools to help throughout the process. It's a nice way of doing it, and it continues once you get tenure”
“I used to think that I was so dedicated to physics that I didn't need female role models.But when I was doing my PhD, I saw very successful women in physics for the first time and I saw young women in my field taking the path to become a professor. It was very inspirational to see and I watched them very closely, much more closely than I watched the men. I think being a woman myself in the department is already making a difference here.”
