For many years, [associate professor] Alon Gorodetsky, Ph.D., and his research group have been working on materials inspired by squid. In past work, they developed "invisibility stickers," which consisted of bacterially produced squid reflectin proteins that were adhered onto sticky tape. "So then, we had this crazy idea to see whether we could capture some aspect of the ability of squid skin tissues to change transparency within human cell cultures," says Gorodetsky, who is the principal investigator on the project. The team at the University of California, Irvine focused their efforts on cephalopod cells called leucophores, which have particulate-like nanostructures composed of reflectin proteins that scatter light. Read More