Tag Archives: Linqing Li

Dragonfly and locust rubber

There’s a protein in some insects such as dragonflies, mosquitoes (!) and locusts which is superior to synthetic rubber according to a July 30, 2013 news release from the American Chemical Society (ACS) [also on EurekAlert],

Kristi Kiick and colleagues explain that scientists discovered resilin a half-century ago in the wing hinges of locusts and elastic tendons of dragonflies. The extraordinary natural protein tops the best synthetic rubbers. Resilin can stretch to three times its original length, for instance, and then spring back to its initial shape without losing its elasticity, despite repeated stretching and relaxing cycles. That’s a crucial trait for insects that must flap or jump millions of times over their lifetimes. Scientists first synthesized resilin in 2005 and have been striving to harness its properties in medicine.

Kiick’s team describes how their own research and experiments by other scientists are making major strides toward practical applications of resilin. Scientists have modified resilin with gold nanoparticles for possible use in diagnostics, engineered mosquito-based resin to act like human cartilage and developed a hybrid material for cardiovascular applications. “This increasing amount of knowledge gained from studies on natural resilin and resilin-like polypeptides continues to inspire new designs and applications of recombinant resilin-based biopolymers in biomedical and biotechnological applications,” the scientists state.

Illustrating 'insect rubber' [downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/mz4002194]

Illustrating ‘insect rubber’ [downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/mz4002194]

Here’s a link to and a citation for the researchers’ biomimicry paper published by ACS Macro Letters,

Resilin-Based Materials for Biomedical Applications by Linqing Li and Kristi L. Kiick. ACS Macro Lett., 2013, 2, pp 635–640 DOI: 10.1021/mz4002194 Publication Date (Web): July 11, 2013
Copyright © 2013 American Chemical Society

This paper is open access.