Sponge spurs substance study

The simple marine sponge is inspiring research in the design of new materials at the

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The simple sponge fits into the palm of your hand, and proliferates in the ocean next to the UCSB campus, said Daniel E. Morse, professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at UCSB.

"When you remove the tissue you're left with a handful of fibreglass needles as fine as spun glass or cotton,” said Morse. “This primitive skeleton supports the structure of the sponge, and we've discovered how this glass is made biologically."

The research, recently reported in the journal Advanced Materials, is an important step forward in translating nature's production methods in the biological world into practical methods for the development of new materials in the laboratory.

The UCSB research team developed a method for coupling small, inexpensive synthetic molecules (that duplicate those found at the active centre of the bio-catalyst of the marine sponge) onto the surfaces of gold nanoparticles. They showed that when two populations of these chemically modified nanoparticles, each bearing half of the catalytic site, are brought together, they function just as the natural biological catalyst does to make silica at low temperatures.