Do the Twist

Sharing creativity with architects and designers, bioengineers are exploring innovative ways to create intricate medical devices, albeit at a scale 10,000 times smaller than the Sydney Opera House. These tiny structures perfect a new trick – designs with a twist. A gold material is placed in patterns onto a stretched surface peppered with tiny cuts (top left). As the surface relaxes, the gold structures buckle, spiral or pop up into a 3D shape (bottom right), similar to the Japanese art of kirigami. As scientists know how the materials behave, these structures can be designed using computer models first, much like how computer-aided design is used for buildings and machines. Putting a twist into new artificial particles increases the flexibility of designs used in medical implants or sensors.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

Website

• Image from work by Hangbo Zhao and Kan Li, and colleagues
• Northwestern University, Evanston, IL , USA
• Image copyright held by the original authors; image reproduction permitted by PNAS
• Published in PNAS, July 2019