Undercover Tactics

Soft shell, hard core: nanotubes made of cyclic peptides with a synthetic polymer coating

Ever since the discovery of carbon nanotubes in the early 1990s, scientists and engineers have been fascinated by the possibilities for these little tubes made of organic materials in the fields of microelectronics, substance separation, and biomedicine. Freiburg researchers have now produced novel nanotube hybrids from peptides and polymers: nanotubes made of cyclic peptides are coated with a soft polymeric plastic shell.