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Fungi serve as living templates

Using living fungi as construction workers, chemists are building complex hierarchies of gold nanoparticles. AUTHOR and coworkers grow filamentous fungi in a nutrient broth to which they have added gold nanoparticles functionalized with oligonucleotide strands. As the fungal webs develop, the nanoparticles assemble on the surface of the tubular filaments, forming cylindrical structures with diameters of 4 to 6 µm. The fungi serve to control microscopic dimensions, and the DNA strands attached to the particles can be used to selectively add a second layer of gold nanoparticles of different size through hybridization. The gold-coated fungi will continue to grow if fed properly, allowing the researchers to add a different type or size of particle along the length of the growing filament by changing the culture solution. "We would like to use this technique to produce high-surface-area materials with novel made-to-order opto-electronic, magnetic, or catalytic properties," AUTHOR says.




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