I had two more questions for Dr. Li concerning the work in his latest published paper, ‘Chameleon Nanomaterial Can Transform from Spring to Shock Absorber, Back Again’ (Nature Nanotechnology, online edition, June 29, 2008)

1. What stimulus needs to be applied to get the protein to respond as a shock absorber? And, what stimulus for a ‘spring’ response?

Response: spring and shock absorber are two states of the protein materials we constructed. External stimulus, in this case the addition of antibody fragment, is the one to trigger the switch of the protein between the two states.

I wish I could ask Dr. Li more about this. I have a feeling I didn’t word the question clearly enough as I was trying to find out how this would work at the macro level. In fact,  my next and last question was the one where I was trying to find out how this would be applied in materials that I do or can encounter.

1. You mention a specific application for your work in the Nanowerk article, hydrogels. Apparently they can be used in diapers and breast implants…I’m assuming that this is not what you have in mind. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I looked up hydrogels on Wikipedia and, while there were other applications, I thought these two were the funniest when thinking about shock absorbers and springs.) More seriously, do you have another hydrogel example or possibly another application?

Response: there are many more applications than the two you mentioned. Actually the two applications you mentions do not necessarily require hydrogels. Hydrogel can be used in applications ranging from drug delivery, synthetic extracellular matrix to smart materials.

A diaper that springs amuses me and I still don’t see a real life application. I guess I need more specificity, ‘drug delivery’ is too general for me. The Nanowerk article I’m to referring in my question is here.

Dr. Li is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of British Columbia and he is a  Canada Research Chair in Molecular Nanoscience and Protein Engineering. He co-authored the paper with  Chemistry graduate student, Yi Cao.