Nature Communications (Apr 2020)

Bionic 3D printed corals

  • Daniel Wangpraseurt,
  • Shangting You,
  • Farooq Azam,
  • Gianni Jacucci,
  • Olga Gaidarenko,
  • Mark Hildebrand,
  • Michael Kühl,
  • Alison G. Smith,
  • Matthew P. Davey,
  • Alyssa Smith,
  • Dimitri D. Deheyn,
  • Shaochen Chen,
  • Silvia Vignolini

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15486-4
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 8

Abstract

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Corals have evolved as finely tuned light collectors. Here, the authors report on the 3D printing of coral-inspired biomaterials, that mimic the coral-algal symbiosis; these bionic corals lead to dense microalgal growth and can find applications in algal biotechnology and applied coral science.