Living biomaterials are promising drug delivery and biosensor devices but their living character complicates their assessment with host tissues. Besides, the use of animal experiments increases comple...

Friction was studied for the human finger pad during the spreading of viscous liquid samples in circular motion on a solid substrate. The samples included both Newtonian and shear-thinning liquids wit...

During mating in budding yeast, cells use pheromones to locate each other and fuse. This model system has shaped our current understanding of signal transduction and cell polarization in response to e...

The oxidation of triphenylphosphine by perfluorinated phenaziniumF aluminate in difluorobenzene affords hexaaryl-1,2-diphosphonium dialuminate 1. Dication 12+ is valence isoelectronic with elusive hex...

Melt Electrowriting (MEW) is a powerful technique in tissue engineering, enabling the precise fabrication of scaffolds with complex geometries. One of the most important parameters of MEW is collecto....

During mating in budding yeast, cells use pheromones to locate each other and fuse. This model system has shaped our current understanding of signal transduction and cell polarization in response to e...

Materials science research faces challenges due to diverse and evolving measurements, materials, and methods. Managing research data in a way that is understandable, comparable, and reproducible is e....

The combination of battery product and characterization ontology (BPCO) and domain knowledge guides hypotheses development and leads to new insights into material–property relationship of battery mat...

This manuscript presents advances in digital transformation within materials science and engineering, emphasizing the role of the MaterialDigital Initiative. By testing and applying concepts such as ...

The capability of silver microparticles to be weakly sintered at low-temperatures is employed to create highly conductive printed conductors. The weak sinter necks among the particles can be broken, ...

Introduction: produced by renewable resources, biodegradable polymers with their competitive mechanical properties, thermal stability and biocompatibility are important alternatives to other synthetic...

Silver microflakes and -spheres are common fillers for electrically conductive screen-printing pastes. Here, we report on the effects of filler shapes and sizes on conductivity, sintering, and recycla...

Die NTNM-Campus-Bibliothek (Geb. C6 2) lädt anlässlich der „Nacht der Bibliotheken“ am Freitag, 4. April, ab 18 Uhr zum „Speed D(eb)ating“ ein.

The water dynamics in a nanocomposite film that consists of the electrically conductive poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) and cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) have been investigated during three cycles of exposure to low and high relative humidity (RH = 5% and 85%, respectively) using quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS). The obtained dynamical structure factors are transformed into the imaginary part of the dynamic susceptibility to better differentiate between the individual relaxation processes. In a humid environment, two different water species are present inside the films: fast-moving bulk water and slow-moving hydration water. During the first cycle, a large amount of hydration water enhances the polymer chain mobility, eventually leading to irreversible structural rearrangements within the film. In the subsequent cycles, we observed a release of all bulk water and portions of hydration water upon drying, along with an uptake of both water species in a humid environment. The relaxation times of hydration water diffusion as a function of momentum transfer can be described by a jump-diffusion model. The obtained jump lengths, residence times, and diffusion coefficients of hydration water suggest a change in the hydration layer upon drying: water molecules around hydrophobic groups are released from the film, while the hydrogen bonds between water and hydrophilic groups are sufficiently strong to keep these molecules inside the films, even in a dry state. The QENS results can be correlated to the structural and conductive properties. In the dry state, the low hydration water content and the absence of bulk water allow for improved wetting of the CNFs by PEDOT:PSS, which eventually increases the electrical conductivity of the films.

The formation of colloidal gels of ultrathin gold nanowires is chemically induced due to a ligand exchange after the addition of triphenylphosphine. During the gelation process, the bundle arrangemen....

Materials that can be switched between a polycationic/antimicrobial and a polyzwitterionic/protein-repellent state have important applications, e.g., as biofilm-reducing coatings in medical devices. However, the lack of stability under storage and application conditions so far restricts the lifetime and efficiency of such materials. In this work, a polynorbornene-based polycarboxybetaine with an optimized molecular structure for improved hydrolytic stability is presented. The polymer is fully characterized on the molecular level. Surface-attached polymer networks are obtained by spin-coating and UV cross-linking. These coatings are highly uniform and demonstrate charge-switching in zeta-potential studies. Storage stability in the dry state, as well as in aqueous systems at pH 4.5 and 7.4 for 28 days, is demonstrated. At pH 8, hydrolytic degradation is observed. Overall, the materials are substantially more stable than the corresponding ester-based systems.

Living natural materials have remarkable sensing abilities that translate external cues into functional changes of the material. The reconstruction of such sensing materials in bottom-up synthetic biology provides the opportunity to develop synthetic materials with life-like sensing and adaptation ability. Key to such functions are material modules that translate specific input signals into a biomolecular response. Here, we engineer a synthetic organelle based on liquid–liquid phase separation that translates a metabolic signal into the regulation of gene transcription. To this aim, we engineer the pyruvate-dependent repressor PdhR to undergo liquid–liquid phase separation in vitro by fusion to intrinsically disordered regions. We demonstrate that the resulting coacervates bind DNA harboring PdhR-responsive operator sites in a pyruvate dose-dependent and reversible manner. We observed that the activity of transcription units on the DNA was strongly attenuated following recruitment to the coacervates. However, the addition of pyruvate resulted in a reversible and dose-dependent reconstitution of transcriptional activity. The coacervate-based synthetic organelles linking metabolic cues to transcriptional signals represent a materials approach to confer stimulus responsiveness to minimal bottom-up synthetic biological systems and open opportunities in materials for sensor applications.

Scientific Reports - The role of skin hydration, skin deformability, and age in tactile friction and perception of materials

Hyaluronic acid (HA) inks functionalized with norbornene, allyl ether, or methacrylate groups are compared regarding stability, photocrosslinking kinetics, and mechanical properties. Rheology experim...