Thinking of shells as a biomineralization process to make shaped CaCO3 that is useful not only for providing mechanical strength and overall structure for sea creatures but also for human tools and other purposes, are we starting to make similarly useful hybrid materials with multiple uses.
I am wondering more about things like protein or DNA-nanomaterial complexes and where these might be useful. We have for example used DNA-Nanogold complexes to examine the DNA damage responses to mismatched DNA (DNA conformations in mismatch repair probed in solution by X-ray scattering from gold nanocrystals. Hura GL, et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Oct 22;110(43):17308-13. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1308595110 ), but I'm sure there must be lots of this and of differing uses that would be of general interest. I would like to hear what others are doing and where this is making novel and useful materials.
I think it depends what you want to call a 'material'. I have been working for the last 10 years on DNA (and other biomacromolecules) coated nanoparticles (QDs, gold, silver platinum) for diagnostic applications. While these are defenityly hybrid organic/inorganic constructs, they might not be hybrid materials when one things of construction material like bone. I didn't see a lot of work on hybrid construction materials, probably because the bio part will degrade too fast it is not a part of a living system.
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