Interfaces : materials chemistry-biology-medicine (III)

This year, we have devoted a series of lessons to describing and analyzing current knowledge of biomineralization processes, and to presenting advances in materials science through the use of viruses to build functional hybrid materials. Biomineralization is the biological and physicochemical process during which living organisms or plants synthesize mineralized tissues. These can take a wide variety of forms, structures and compositions. In the first lesson, afteran introduction to the different biominerals found in nature, we focused on the structures and formation processes of various biological materials: calcium carbonates (coccolithophorids, gastropod and bivalve shells, echinoderm teeth), calcium carbonate-iron oxide composites (limpet- and chiton-type grazing molluscs), magnetic iron oxides (magnetotactic bacteria). Some microorganisms act as veritable nanoparticle factories. We also illustrated these systems in a fourth lecture dedicated to the synthesis of a wide varietyof nanomaterials based on gold, silver, selenium, zinc or arsenic sulfide, iron or cobalt oxides. These compounds are produced by algae, yeast, fungi and bacteria. The second part of this lecture series reviewed the use of biomodified viruses (tobacco mosaic virus, icosahedral capsid virus, etc.) as templates for the growth of new metal- or semiconductor-based nanocomposites, and the inclusion of these hybrids in electrochemical devices or nanoelectronics. The last lecture was devoted to bacteriophage M13 viruses and their biomodification for integration into a wide range of devices: batteries, sensors, liquid crystal deposition, etc. These studies have opened up a new field of research at the frontier of biology, chemistry and materials science, known as "virustonics".