The same bacteria that eats flesh can make a super glue used to bind molecules.
Dr. Mark Howarth, with his graduate student Bijan Zakeri in Oxford University's department of biochemistry, developed an adhesive that sticks molecules together, nearly inseparably.
They used the bacteria Streptococcus pyogenes, infamous for eating flesh when there is a serious infection and strep throat when it is mild. S. pyogenes makes a protein called FBab that forms a chemical bond between two groups of amino acids. And it does so really, really well.
Dr. Mark Howarth, with his graduate student Bijan Zakeri in Oxford University's department of biochemistry, developed an adhesive that sticks molecules together, nearly inseparably.
They used the bacteria Streptococcus pyogenes, infamous for eating flesh when there is a serious infection and strep throat when it is mild. S. pyogenes makes a protein called FBab that forms a chemical bond between two groups of amino acids. And it does so really, really well.
