{"id":118907,"date":"2021-01-26T20:24:30","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T04:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/researchers-construct-molecular-nanofibers-that-are-stronger-than-steel"},"modified":"2021-01-26T20:24:30","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T04:24:30","slug":"researchers-construct-molecular-nanofibers-that-are-stronger-than-steel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/01\/researchers-construct-molecular-nanofibers-that-are-stronger-than-steel","title":{"rendered":"Researchers construct molecular nanofibers that are stronger than steel"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Self-assembly is ubiquitous in the natural world, serving as a route to form organized structures in every living organism. This phenomenon can be seen, for instance, when two strands of DNA\u2014without any external prodding or guidance\u2014join to form a double helix, or when large numbers of molecules combine to create membranes or other vital cellular structures. Everything goes to its rightful place without an unseen builder having to put all the pieces together, one at a time.<\/p>\n

For the past couple of decades, scientists and engineers have been following nature\u2019s lead, designing molecules that assemble themselves in water<\/a>, with the goal of making nanostructures, primarily for biomedical applications<\/a> such as drug delivery or tissue engineering. \u201cThese small-molecule-based materials tend to degrade rather quickly,\u201d explains Julia Ortony, assistant professor in MIT\u2019s Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE), \u201cand they\u2019re chemically unstable, too. The whole structure falls apart when you remove the water, particularly when any kind of external force is applied.\u201d<\/p>\n

She and her team, however, have designed a new class of small molecules that spontaneously assemble into nanoribbons with unprecedented strength, retaining their structure outside of water. The results of this multi-year effort, which could inspire a broad range of applications, were described on Jan. 21 in Nature Nanotechnology<\/i> by Ortony and coauthors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Self-assembly is ubiquitous in the natural world, serving as a route to form organized structures in every living organism. This phenomenon can be seen, for instance, when two strands of DNA\u2014without any external prodding or guidance\u2014join to form a double helix, or when large numbers of molecules combine to create membranes or other vital cellular [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,11,19,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-biotech-medical","category-chemistry","category-nanotechnology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118907\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}