Using sol-gel approaches, lithographically defined biopolymers, gels, and single cells can be replicated into both hard (silica, glassy carbon, etc.,) and soft synthetic (e.g., PEG) materials with < 10 nm precision.

Contact: Bryan Kaehr

Research Highlights:
Shape-Preserved Transformation of Biological Cells into Synthetic Hydrogel Microparticles
Meyer, K. C.; Labriola, N. R.; Darling, E. M.; Kaehr, B. Advanced Biosystems 2019, 3 (4), 1800285. doi.org/10.1002/adbi.201800285

Synthetic Fossilization of Soft Biological Tissues and Their Shape-Preserving Transformation into Silica or Electron-Conductive Replicas
Townson, J. L.; Lin, Y.-S.; Chou, S. S.; Awad, Y. H.; Coker, E. N.; Brinker, C. J.; Kaehr, B. Nature Communications 2014, 5 (1). doi.org/10.1038/ncomms66655

Cellular Complexity Captured in Durable Silica Biocomposites
Kaehr, B.; Townson, J. L.; Kalinich, R. M.; Awad, Y. H.; Swartzentruber, B. S.; Dunphy, D. R.; Brinker, C. J. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2012, 109 (43), 17336–17341. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1205816109