More than Calamari

The future is always envisioned as a world of wondrous gadgets and incredible foreign technologies. The path traveled to reach this point however, becomes a little bit fuzzier. People see the final destination, but do not often consider the painstaking process of research that goes into every facet of new technology. Here at Penn State, around 805 million dollars is put into research per year. Simply, Penn State is a very active research university. In this blog, I want to share some of the most interesting and promising research that is being done here at University Park. I want to share what makes Penn State so exciting while at the same time giving insight for those people interested in pursuing undergraduate research.

One of the most exciting fields of research right now (at least in my opinion) is materials science. Most of the material science labs are in the Millennium Science Complex, so you know it has to be cool. 

They don't put just any old research into a building like that.

Material science is all about developing new materials to improve the products that improve our lives. Take medical implants for example. Right now implants can deteriorate. Our bodies do not recognize them as friendly, which means not only do our bodies not put in the effort to upkeep them, they actively reject the foreign objects. This is where Melik Demirel's lab (and squid!) comes in.

Squid teeth have a very unique property in that they are self-healing in the presence of water (which isn't that hard to come by for a squid). Thanks to the wonder of genetic engineering, they are able to take the protein which enables this to occur, stick it in a bacteria, have the bacteria divide like bunnies, and then harvest as much of this protein that they want. Its like a little farm for protein. They then can take the protein and combine it in a two-part polymer that can be formed into whatever shape suits your fancy. But now when your application tears, just add water! This video from their lab demonstrates the polymer's abilities quite well.

Since our bodies are more than 50% water, medical implants could utilize this polymer to great effect. The lifespan of implants could be dramatically increased, reducing the number of invasive procedures an implant patient would have to go through. But this is just one application of this new polymer. There are endless possibilities for materials that self-heal with water. Demeril proposes its use in hard-to-reach cabling: "If one of the fiber-optic cables under the ocean breaks, the only way to fix it is to replace it. With this material, it would be possible to heal the cable and go on with operation, saving time and money."

So in the future, when you get a self healing medical implant that saves your life, thank the squid. And thank Penn State.