Phage as templates for hybrid materials and mediators for nanomaterial synthesis.
Genetic engineering of phage provides unprecedented opportunities to build novel nanomaterials by integrating biology, chemistry and materials science principles. By mimicking the evolution process in nature, the phage is used as an information-mining tool to identify specific peptide information that can recognize desired materials at the molecular level. The unique recognition peptides of the phage can direct peptide-mediated mineralization processes to grow many useful nanometer-scale electronic and medical materials. The monodispersity and long rod shape of the phage, bearing specific recognition motifs, enable the organization of various nanomaterials into periodically ordered hierarchical structures that could be useful for electronic, optical and biotechnological applications.