It's Morphin' Time

Inside an embryo, sheets of cells twist and fold into early tissues. Taking inspiration here, scientists produce intricate 3D shapes from 2D templates of bendy hydrogel. Using photolithography they etch a 'design' into the jelly-like material, marking out places where it will swell or shrink. A blast of temperature sets this hemisphere design bending and folding, expanding and shrinking along its creases like a crisp packet in an oven. The video (speeded up 450 times) follows the reversible process, with the gel returning to its original shape as it cools. The techniques here are flexible in more ways than one – shape-shifting hydrogels may be used to mimic and explore the shape changes or morphogenesis that occur during human development, but also in creating ‘soft robots’ perhaps one day triggered to release helpful chemicals into the body.

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

• Video by Amirali Nojoomi, Junha Jeon & Kyungsuk Yum
• Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Nature Communications, January 2021