funded by the Army<\/a> at Northwestern University was recently published outlining a set of design rules that could enable the development of advanced protective gear for warfighters.<\/p>\nBiological polymers \u2014 such as DNA \u2014 have precise building block sequences that have multiple functions. A polymer\u2019s mechanical stability is dependent upon how its building blocks are arranged, said Dawanne Poree, program manager for the Army\u2019s polymer chemistry program.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have that type of fidelity on the synthetic chemistry side,\u201d Poree said.<\/p>\n
The project, which started in July 2016, explored how to re-engineer biological polymers to work with non-biological building blocks in order to create a route to synthetic polymers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were some advances being made in synthetic biology where you could actually make \u2026 synthetic ribosomes,\u201d Poree said. \u201cOur question became: Is it possible to re-engineer the ribosome to allow it to use building blocks other than nature\u2019s building blocks?\u201d<\/p>\n
A much larger library of building blocks exists on the synthetic chemistry side, but the ability to control it well with biological polymers doesn\u2019t exist, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs there a possibility for merging the two worlds?\u201d she wondered.<\/p>\n
Stephanie McElhinny, co-program manager for the initiative, described the ribosome as a \u201cpolymer synthesis machine\u201d that creates polymers in a specific order. Through the program, researchers are attempting to use that ribosome machine to make different polymers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to use synthetic biology to change this machine in a way that allows it to churn out polymers that we\u2019re interested in from the Army\u2019s perspective, not the regular biological polymers that it naturally makes,\u201d McElhinny said.<\/p>\n
Although the scientists have made strides in their research that could eventually lead to a new class of therapeutics for soldiers, the specific outcomes of the research are still unclear, Poree said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is very far off research,\u201d she said. \u201cWhere we see it going specifically, we don\u2019t know. What\u2019s very interesting about this class of material, \u2026 if we\u2019re able to control the structure of the material, then essentially what that allows is for us to be able to make materials that have whatever properties that we want.\u201d<\/p>\n
The research is part of the Defense Department\u2019s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative program, which is supported by the Army Research Office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Biologists working for the Army have developed a process that could lead to a class of synthetic polymers that may be used to create new materials such as therapeutics for soldiers. Research conducted through a project funded by the Army at Northwestern University was recently published outlining a set of design rules that could enable […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[10408,11592,12468],"supplier":[3930,10519,2959],"class_list":["post-71762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-greenchemistry","tag-polymers","tag-textiles","supplier-northwestern-university","supplier-u-s-army","supplier-us-department-of-defense-dod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71762\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71762"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=71762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}