At the moment, companies around the world are scrambling to build ventilators quickly, including Virgin Orbit, a firm backed by billionaire Richard Branson which usually manufactures rockets. Virgin Orbit, however, is building a simple version of the machine. “This one is going to basically be for all the patients who need a ventilator but do not need a top-line ventilator. That will free up all these top-line ventilators for the sickest of the sick,” said Dr.

For almost a decade, chemical engineers at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering at the University of California, Irvine, have been working on materials that are either derived or inspired by squids, octopus, and cuttlefish.