Synthetic fossilization of soft biological tissues and their shape-preserving transformation into silica or electron-conductive replicas

Townson, Jason L.; Lin, Yu-Shen; Chou, Stanley S.; Awad, Yasmine H.; Coker, Eric N.; Brinker, C. Jeffrey; Kaehr, Bryan

doi:10.1038/ncomms6665

Title: Synthetic fossilization of soft biological tissues and their shape-preserving transformation into silica or electron-conductive replicas

Journal Article · Mon Dec 08 00:00:00 EST 2014 · Nature Communications

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms6665· OSTI ID:1261094

Townson, Jason L. ^[1]; Lin, Yu-Shen ^[2]; Chou, Stanley S. ^[3]; Awad, Yasmine H. ^[4]; Coker, Eric N. ^[3]; Brinker, C. Jeffrey ^[5]; Kaehr, Bryan ^[5]

Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States). Division of Molecular Medicine; Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States).Center for Micro- Engineered Materials
Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States). Division of Molecular Medicine; Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States).Center for Micro- Engineered Materials
Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States). Advanced Materials Lab.
Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States).Center for Micro- Engineered Materials
Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States). Advanced Materials Lab.; Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States). Dept. of Chemical and Biological Engineering

Structural preservation of complex biological systems from the subcellular to whole organism level in robust forms, enabling dissection and imaging while preserving 3D context, represents an enduring grand challenge in biology. Here we report a simple immersion method for structurally preserving intact organisms via conformal stabilization within silica. This self-limiting process, which we refer to as silica bioreplication, occurs by condensation of water-soluble silicic acid proximally to biomolecular interfaces throughout the organism. Conformal nanoscopic silicification of all biomolecular features imparts structural rigidity enabling the preservation of shape and nano-to-macroscale dimensional features upon drying to form a biocomposite and further high temperature oxidative calcination to form silica replicas or reductive pyrolysis to form electrically conductive carbon replicas of complete organisms. Ultimately, the simplicity and generalizability of this approach should facilitate efforts in biological preservation and analysis and could enable the development of new classes of biomimetic composite materials.

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Research Organization:: Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR); New Mexico Cancer Nanotechnology Training Center (CNTC), Albuquerque, NM (United States); National Science Foundation (NSF)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC04-94AL85000; FA9550-14-1-0066; R25CA153825; CBET-1344298

OSTI ID:: 1261094

Journal Information:: Nature Communications, Vol. 5; ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 22 works

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