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Thank you.

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I'm thrilled to be here.

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I'm going to talk about a new, old material

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that still continues to amaze us,

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and that might impact the way we think

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about material science, high technology --

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and maybe, along the way,

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also do some stuff for medicine and for global health and help reforestation.

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So that's kind of a bold statement.

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I'll tell you a little bit more.

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This material actually has some traits that make it seem almost too good to be true.

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It's sustainable; it's a sustainable material

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that is processed all in water and at room temperature --

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and is biodegradable with a clock,

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so you can watch it dissolve instantaneously in a glass of water

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or have it stable for years.

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It's edible; it's implantable in the human body

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without causing any immune response.

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It actually gets reintegrated in the body.

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And it's technological,

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so it can do things like microelectronics,

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and maybe photonics do.

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And the material

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looks something like this.

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In fact, this material you see is clear and transparent.

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The components of this material are just water and protein.

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So this material is silk.

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So it's kind of different

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from what we're used to thinking about silk.

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So the question is, how do you reinvent something

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that has been around for five millennia?

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The process of discovery, generally, is inspired by nature.

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And so we marvel at silk worms --

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the silk worm you see here spinning its fiber.

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The silk worm does a remarkable thing:

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it uses these two ingredients, protein and water,

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that are in its gland,

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to make a material that is exceptionally tough for protection --

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so comparable to technical fibers

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like Kevlar.

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And so in the reverse engineering process

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that we know about,

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and that we're familiar with,

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for the textile industry,

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the textile industry goes and unwinds the cocoon

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and then weaves glamorous things.

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We want to know how you go from water and protein

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to this liquid Kevlar, to this natural Kevlar.

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So the insight

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is how do you actually reverse engineer this

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and go from cocoon to gland

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and get water and protein that is your starting material.

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And this is an insight

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that came, about two decades ago,

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from a person that I'm very fortunate to work with,

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David Kaplan.

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And so we get this starting material.

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And so this starting material is back to the basic building block.

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And then we use this to do a variety of things --

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like, for example, this film.

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And we take advantage of something that is very simple.

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The recipe to make those films

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is to take advantage of the fact

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that proteins are extremely smart at what they do.

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They find their way to self-assemble.

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So the recipe is simple: you take the silk solution, you pour it,

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and you wait for the protein to self-assemble.

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And then you detach the protein and you get this film,

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as the proteins find each other as the water evaporates.

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But I mentioned that the film is also technological.

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And so what does that mean?

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It means that you can interface it

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with some of the things that are typical of technology,

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like microelectronics and nanoscale technology.

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And the image of the DVD here

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is just to illustrate a point

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that silk follows very subtle topographies of the surface,

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which means that it can replicate features on the nanoscale.

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So it would be able to replicate the information

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that is on the DVD.

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And we can store information that's film with water and protein.

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So we tried something out, and we wrote a message in a piece of silk,

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which is right here, and the message is over there.

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And much like in the DVD, you can read it out optically.

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And this requires a stable hand,

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so this is why I decided to do it onstage in front of a thousand people.

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So let me see.

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So as you see the film go in transparently through there,

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and then ...

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(Applause)

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And the most remarkable feat

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is that my hand actually stayed still long enough to do that.

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So once you have these attributes

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of this material,

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then you can do a lot of things.

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It's actually not limited to films.

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And so the material can assume a lot of formats.

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And then you go a little crazy, and so you do various optical components

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or you do microprism arrays,

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like the reflective tape that you have on your running shoes.

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Or you can do beautiful things

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that, if the camera can capture, you can make.

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You can add a third dimensionality to the film.

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And if the angle is right,

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you can actually see a hologram appear in this film of silk.

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But you can do other things.

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You can imagine that then maybe you can use a pure protein to guide light,

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and so we've made optical fibers.

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But silk is versatile and it goes beyond optics.

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And you can think of different formats.

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So for instance, if you're afraid of going to the doctor and getting stuck with a needle,

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we do microneedle arrays.

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What you see there on the screen is a human hair

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superimposed on the needle that's made of silk --

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just to give you a sense of size.

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You can do bigger things.

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You can do gears and nuts and bolts --

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that you can buy at Whole Foods.

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And the gears work in water as well.

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So you think of alternative mechanical parts.

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And maybe you can use that liquid Kevlar if you need something strong

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to replace peripheral veins, for example,

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or maybe an entire bone.

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And so you have here a little example

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of a small skull --

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what we call mini Yorick.

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(Laughter)

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But you can do things like cups, for example,

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and so, if you add a little bit of gold, if you add a little bit of semiconductors

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you could do sensors that stick on the surfaces of foods.

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You can do electronic pieces

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that fold and wrap.

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Or if you're fashion forward, some silk LED tattoos.

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So there's versatility, as you see,

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in the material formats,

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that you can do with silk.

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But there are still some unique traits.

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I mean, why would you want to do all these things for real?

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I mentioned it briefly at the beginning;

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the protein is biodegradable and biocompatible.

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And you see here a picture of a tissue section.

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And so what does that mean, that it's biodegradable and biocompatible?

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You can implant it in the body without needing to retrieve what is implanted.

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Which means that all the devices that you've seen before and all the formats,

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in principle, can be implanted and disappear.

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And what you see there in that tissue section,

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in fact, is you see that reflector tape.

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So, much like you're seen at night by a car,

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then the idea is that you can see, if you illuminate tissue,

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you can see deeper parts of tissue

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because there is that reflective tape there that is made out of silk.

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And you see there, it gets reintegrated in tissue.

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And reintegration in the human body

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is not the only thing,

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but reintegration in the environment is important.

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So you have a clock, you have protein,

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and now a silk cup like this

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can be thrown away without guilt --

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(Applause)

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unlike the polystyrene cups

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that unfortunately fill our landfills everyday.

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It's edible,

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so you can do smart packaging around food

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that you can cook with the food.

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It doesn't taste good,

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so I'm going to need some help with that.

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But probably the most remarkable thing is that it comes full circle.

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Silk, during its self-assembly process,

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acts like a cocoon for biological matter.

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And so if you change the recipe,

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and you add things when you pour --

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so you add things to your liquid silk solution --

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where these things are enzymes

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or antibodies or vaccines,

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the self-assembly process

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preserves the biological function of these dopants.

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So it makes the materials environmentally active

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and interactive.

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So that screw that you thought about beforehand

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can actually be used

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to screw a bone together -- a fractured bone together --

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and deliver drugs at the same,

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while your bone is healing, for example.

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Or you could put drugs in your wallet and not in your fridge.

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So we've made a silk card

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with penicillin in it.

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And we stored penicillin at 60 degrees C,

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so 140 degrees Fahrenheit,

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for two months without loss of efficacy of the penicillin.

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And so that could be ---

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(Applause)

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that could be potentially a good alternative

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to solar powered refrigerated camels. (Laughter)

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And of course, there's no use in storage if you can't use [it].

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And so there is this other unique material trait

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that these materials have, that they're programmably degradable.

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And so what you see there is the difference.

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In the top, you have a film that has been programmed not to degrade,

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and in the bottom, a film that has been programmed to degrade in water.

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And what you see is that the film on the bottom

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releases what is inside it.

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So it allows for the recovery of what we've stored before.

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And so this allows for a controlled delivery of drugs

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and for reintegration in the environment

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in all of these formats that you've seen.

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So the thread of discovery that we have really is a thread.

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We're impassioned with this idea that whatever you want to do,

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whether you want to replace a vein or a bone,

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or maybe be more sustainable in microelectronics,

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perhaps drink a coffee in a cup

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and throw it away without guilt,

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maybe carry your drugs in your pocket,

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deliver them inside your body

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or deliver them across the desert,

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the answer may be in a thread of silk.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)