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Pore Pattern
28 January 2013

Pore Pattern

The inner workings of living organisms have inspired all kinds of new man-made materials. Naturally-occurring drugs can be analysed for their chemical structures and then mimicked in the lab; ingenious biological structures are being carefully examined and their designs put to new uses. Pictured is a sheet of phospholipids – a bendy material that covers our cells with tiny pores, letting nutritious chemicals in and keeping harmful ones out. Superimposed over this microscope picture (with porous areas highlighted in orange), is a computer simulation showing how chemical bonds pull the flower-shaped pores (each 15 million times smaller than a daffodil) into a hexagonal pattern or ‘lattice’. Porous phospholipids might one day be moulded into tiny containers designed to release drugs precisely into diseased cells in the body.

Written by John Ankers

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BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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