Alzheimer substance may be the nanomaterial of tomorrow

Amyloid protein causes diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. But amyloid also carries unique characteristics that may lead to the development of new composite materials for the nano processors and data storage of tomorrow, and even make objects invisible.

Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology recently unveiled an unexpected discovery about amyloid in an article published in the Nature Photonics journal. Amyloids are misfolded variants of proteins that occur naturally in the body. The researchers have now shown that the misfolded variants react to multiphoton irradiation, a type of laser effect, whereas the healthy proteins do not.

The discovery could be useful in a variety of fields. Not only can it lead to new methods to detect and treat the brain diseases that amyloid causes, amyloid may also be used as a building block for future nanomaterials.