Stable polymer nanotubes may have a biotech future
February 3, 2006 | Source: KurzweilAI
Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have created polymer nanotubes that are unusually long (about 1 centimeter) as well as stable enough to maintain their shape indefinitely.
The nanotubes may have biotechnology applications as channels for tiny volumes of chemicals in nanofluidic reactor devices, for example, or as the “world’s smallest hypodermic needles” for injecting molecules one at a time.
References:
J.E. Reiner, J.M. Wells, R.B. Kishore, C. Pfefferkorn, and K. Helmerson. 2006. Stable and robust polymer nanotubes stretched from polymersomes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Published online Jan. 23, 2006