Excerpt:
Synthetic biologists working on a U.S. Army project have developed a process that could lead to a new class of synthetic polymers that may create new high-performance materials and therapeutics for Soldiers.
On November 8, 2019, Nature Communications published research conducted by Army-funded researchers at Northwestern University, who developed a set of design rules to guide how ribosomes, a cell structure that makes protein, can incorporate new kinds of monomers, which can be bonded with identical molecules to form polymers.
“These findings are an exciting step forward to achieving sequence-defined synthetic polymers, which has been a grand challenge in the field of polymer chemistry,” said Dr. Dawanne Poree, program manager, polymer chemistry at the Army Research Office. “The ability to harness and adapt cellular machinery to produce non-biological polymers would, in essence, bring synthetic materials into the realm of biological functions. This could render advanced, high-performance materials such as nanoelectronics, self-healing materials, and other materials of interest for the Army.”
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