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Polymers created using genetic science.(TECHNOLOGY UPDATE)

High Performance Plastics, November, 2006

Chemists at Virginia Polytechnic Institute Virginia Tech), USA, are creating novel polymers by adding deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) base pairs--nucleotides on each side of the rungs that connect the strands of the DNA "ladder". Potential applications include materials with improved stretchable behaviour and so-called "self-healing" polymer films and coatings.

Specifically, Brian Mather, a chemical engineering graduate student who is working with chemistry Professor Timothy E. Long, is studying how these molecules recognize each other in supramolecular complexes. He is doing this by attaching adenine and thymine as the outer sequences of triblock copolymers. These are polymers where the units of a molecular chain are connected in blocks of the same structure...

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