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Biological software for materials engineering

Nature Biotechnology volume 18, pages 828–829 (2000)Cite this article

The cross-fertilization of biology, chemistry, and materials science is opening up tremendous opportunities for innovation in previously unrelated disciplines such as electronics and information processing. The extraordinary recognition capability of biomolecules has suggested their use as a means for direct recognition and binding of inorganic materials—in other words acting as a sort of natural software for programming the formation of matter. A recent paper in Nature by Whaley et al.1, which describes an approach for generating peptides suitable for use in semiconductors and metal binding, is the latest of a series of papers2,3,4,5,6,7,8 that demonstrate the potential of these biological approaches in materials engineering.

Researchers working in fields as disparate as molecular electronics and the biology of bone formation are becoming increasingly aware of the use of self–assembling biomolecules as tools for studying and controlling the formation of complex structures, both organic and inorganic (metals and semiconductors). The main idea is to exploit the highly specific binding properties characteristic of naturally formed organisms to drive the formation of hybrid inorganic structures containing semiconductors or metals.

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Figure 1: Possible scheme for materials engineering using metal-binding peptides generated by phage display.

courtesy Angela Belcher

References

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  1. professor, INFM Research Unit Department of Innovation Engineering, University of Lecce, Via Arnesano, Lecce, 73100, Italy

    Roberto Cingolani

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  1. Roberto Cingolani
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Cingolani, R. Biological software for materials engineering. Nat Biotechnol 18, 828–829 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/78431

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