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Asked by Plasma_based_lifeform to Thomas on 22 Jun 2015.
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Thomas Farrugia answered on 22 Jun 2015:
Ahoy Plasma_based_lifeform – great seeing you from the chat!
From what I’ve come across during my reading there has been scope in using polymers to create new scaffolds for cells, but normally you want those to degrade after a while. You can modify proteins using polymers to make them sticky – for example the protein will hang around more within the cell membrane, and help protect it from certain toxins (the protein in question would break them down)
If by enhance you mean directly improve our performance I haven’t come across anything yet, but when you think about it hip replacements are mainly made out of polymer, and they do enhance people’s quality of life quite a bit!
There’s a lot of research going into soft robotics as well, which relies heavily on polymers and hydrogels – major developments would allow for new prostheses and objects to be made – maybe to the point where people could have a harness with extra arms or the like. actually be given extra limbs, not necessarily biologically interfaced, but still on their person (I’m going a bit far out here, but this could be done with the right team of people, setting and research capabilities). Electronic skin is also a big topic at the moment – but I haven’t read up much up on that.
So you could most lilkely have polymer based materials working at different levels – cellular, organ/bone level, and macro level.
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