Diatoms
Diatoms form diverse nanopatterned silica structures. In contrast to many current materials approaches to the synthesis of patterned silica, biogenic silica is formed rapidly under mild conditions mediated by a highly post-translationally modified peptide. We are taking a wide variety of approaches in not only understanding the function of such peptides, but also in applying our methods to the design of new functionalized SiO2 materials.
Graduate Students/Post-Docs on this project:
Jenny Nesbitt
Nicholas Wright
