Manufacturing Goes Viral—Researchers coax viruses to assemble into synthetics with microstructures…

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=122027&org=NSF&from=news

Press Release 11-226

Manufacturing Goes Viral

Researchers coax viruses to assemble into synthetics with microstructures and properties akin to those of corneas, teeth and skin

October 19, 2011

View a http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_videos.jsp?cntn_id=122027&media_id=71349&org=NSF">webcast with University of California at Berkeley bioengineer Seung-Wuk Lee and a YouTube http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/goodbye?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2h5SEUPK-o&feature=youtu.be">video on self-templating materials assembly.

Using a simple, single-step process, engineers and scientists at the University of California at Berkeley recently developed a technique to direct benign, filamentous viruses called http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/goodbye?http://utminers.utep.edu/rwebb/html/m13_phages.html">M13 phages to serve as structural building blocks for materials with a wide range of properties.

By controlling the physical environment alone, the researchers caused the viruses to self-assemble into hierarchically organized thin-film structures, with complexity that ranged from simple ridges, to wavy, http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/goodbye?http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/chemistry/chiral/">chiral strands, to truly sophisticated patterns of overlapping strings of material--results that may also shed light on the self-assembly of biological tissues in nature.

Each film presented specific properties for bending light, and several films were capable of guiding the growth of cells into structures with precise physical orientations.

…

[bananas]

1. Virii are not our enemy, except sometimes.

Anything in excess can be really bad,
anything in moderation can be business-as-usual (which may-or-may-not-be good-or-bad).

[Scuba]

2. Growing new materials. Cool. Thanks for posting. n/t