Stronger is not always better

Rather than one key and one strong lock, biology often uses tens or hundreds of weaker links to bind parts together, such as cells membranes. This allows for selectivity and also reversibility: the binding can also be undone. Researcher Christine Linne and colleagues from Leiden University, TU Delft and Imperial College London first caught this phenomenon using spheres or colloids, and published September 1st in the journal PNAS.

Read the full article on the Leiden Univeristy news site.

Photo by FLY:D on Unsplash