Team:Yale
From 2013.igem.org
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- | Converting ''E. coli'' into a foundry for bioplastics | + | ==Converting ''E. coli'' into a foundry for bioplastics== |
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Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) is a plastic that has lately become very attractive due to various excellent properties that make it a great biomaterial. It is biodegradable, having a typical lifetime of about 6 months to 2 years until microorganisms break it down into water and carbon dioxide. It is biocompatible, degrading all at once instead of starting with the outermost layer, allowing the body’s immune response to break down the pieces into water, carbon dioxide, and, of course, lactic acid, before it has the time to overreact and damage surrounding tissues. It is bioabsorbable, allowing it to be resorbed into the body for applications such as spinal implants, slowly transferring the load to the body and allowing the bone to heal in a physically supportive environment. Lastly, it is thermoplastic, allowing it to be extruded in filament form and reshaped, as in a three-dimensional (3D) printer. Unfortunately, conventional methods of synthesizing PLA chemically are quite expensive: one gram of pure PLA costs around $90. Moreover, even though it is mostly manufactured from corn, the processing and purifying steps use many chemicals that are environmentally unfriendly.<br> | Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) is a plastic that has lately become very attractive due to various excellent properties that make it a great biomaterial. It is biodegradable, having a typical lifetime of about 6 months to 2 years until microorganisms break it down into water and carbon dioxide. It is biocompatible, degrading all at once instead of starting with the outermost layer, allowing the body’s immune response to break down the pieces into water, carbon dioxide, and, of course, lactic acid, before it has the time to overreact and damage surrounding tissues. It is bioabsorbable, allowing it to be resorbed into the body for applications such as spinal implants, slowly transferring the load to the body and allowing the bone to heal in a physically supportive environment. Lastly, it is thermoplastic, allowing it to be extruded in filament form and reshaped, as in a three-dimensional (3D) printer. Unfortunately, conventional methods of synthesizing PLA chemically are quite expensive: one gram of pure PLA costs around $90. Moreover, even though it is mostly manufactured from corn, the processing and purifying steps use many chemicals that are environmentally unfriendly.<br> |
Revision as of 21:30, 3 August 2013
Converting E. coli into a foundry for bioplastics
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