Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 111, 18596 (2014) Liquid crystals are widespread in biological systems but tend to be of the lyotropic, rather than the more technologically useful thermotropic, variety. Now Liu and colleagues [1] report a method to prepare thermotropic liquid crystals from biomacromolecules that appears to be largely generic. By adding surfactants to the biomacromolecules and removing water, the authors succeed in making liquid crystals from DNA, RNA, polypeptides, and viruses. The means to readily fabricate materials with the confluence of biological and thermotropic liquid crystal properties may facilitate advances in the field of bioelectronics.
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