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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

To make plastic, just add blood

Red blood cells harbour key ingredients for polymerization.
Coloured scanning electron micrograph of red blood cells

Red blood cells contain the iron-based molecule haemoglobin, which has now been harnessed to synthesize plastic. Credit: David Gregory & Debbie Marshall/CC BY 4.0

Red blood cells normally spend their time ferrying oxygen throughout the body. But now they’ve proved useful in a drastically different role — producing plastics.

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Nature 559, 9 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-05537-8

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