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Nature 430, 519-520 (29 July 2004) | doi:10.1038/430519a; Published online 28 July 2004

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Self-assembly:  Towards precision micelles

Dennis E. Discher1 & Randall D. Kamien1

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Detailed imaging reveals the structure of a spherical 'micelle', self-assembled from cone-shaped molecules, and marks progress towards mimicking the natural assembly skills of biological systems.

Cells synthesize and assemble molecules, even complex machines, of exacting but non-symmetric structure. The precision of the building-blocks and the checks and rechecks of assembly ultimately establish the variety and complexity of cellular function, replication and division.

  1. Dennis E. Discher and Randall D. Kamien are in the Laboratory for Research on the Structure of Matter, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA.
    e-mails: Email: discher@seas.upenn.edu Email: kamien@physics.upenn.edu

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