Difference between revisions of "20.109(F16):Growth of phage materials (Day1)"
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[[Image:Abalone.jpg|thumb|right|225 px| Abalone shell]] | [[Image:Abalone.jpg|thumb|right|225 px| Abalone shell]] | ||
[[Image:Diatoms.jpg|thumb|right|225 px| Diatoms]] | [[Image:Diatoms.jpg|thumb|right|225 px| Diatoms]] | ||
− | The accomplishments of the natural world can inspire us to great engineering feats. Biomineralization is one particularly impressive trick accomplished in nature. Vertebrates, invertebrates and plants all are able to precisely position inorganic substrates into crystalline order. For example, calcium carbonate forms unstructured dust in the absence of genetically-programmed organizers, but the same material can be made into the hard and luminous shells of sea creatures as in the case of the abalone shell. Similarly, diatoms organize silicon dioxide into intricate patterns that manufacturers of electronic components are unable to recreate. In one more instance, bacteria align iron inside their cytoplasm to form magnetic rods on the submicron scale. These feats are accomplished without harsh chemicals, without extreme temperatures, and without noxious wastes that poison the nests of the organisms themselves. Humans have much to learn from | + | The accomplishments of the natural world can inspire us to great engineering feats. Biomineralization is one particularly impressive trick accomplished in nature. Vertebrates, invertebrates and plants all are able to precisely position inorganic substrates into crystalline order. For example, calcium carbonate forms unstructured dust in the absence of genetically-programmed organizers, but the same material can be made into the hard and luminous shells of sea creatures as in the case of the abalone shell. Similarly, diatoms organize silicon dioxide into intricate patterns that manufacturers of electronic components are unable to recreate. In one more instance, bacteria align iron inside their cytoplasm to form magnetic rods on the submicron scale. These feats are accomplished without harsh chemicals, without extreme temperatures, and without noxious wastes that poison the nests of the organisms themselves. Humans have much to learn from nature���s successes. In the upcoming weeks we���ll use a virus that infects bacteria, namely the bacteriophage M13, and we'll rely on the self-assembling coat of this virus to biotemplate iron for the construction of a battery electrode. The interaction of metals with a protein on the phage coat yields nanoscale-particles with useful energetic properties, as we���ll see. |
===About M13=== | ===About M13=== | ||
− | The bacteriophage M13 is a member of the filamentous phage family. It has a long (~900 nm), narrow (~6 nm) protein coat that encases a small (~6.4 kb) single stranded DNA genome. The genome encodes 11 proteins, five of which are exposed on the |