Material scientists have developed methods to transform pollen's exceptionally tough outer shell into a jam-like microgel by removing coatings and chemically softening the polymer. The microgel can serve as a versatile building block for sustainable materials such as paper, film, and sponges. Hollowed-out pollen shells can function as protective vehicles for targeted drug delivery to eyes, lungs, and the stomach. Techniques including defatting to remove lipids and allergenic proteins precede shell softening. Research on these reengineered pollen materials has progressed over a decade, revealing broad potential for eco-friendly biomaterials and biomedical applications.
The powdery stain is pollen: microscopic grains containing male reproductive cells that trees, weeds, and grasses release seasonally. But Cho isn't studying irksome effects like hay fever, or what pollen means for the plants that make it. Instead, the material scientist has spent a decade pioneering and refining techniques to remodel pollen's rigid outer shell-made of a polymer so tough it's sometimes called "the diamond of the plant world" -transforming the grains to a jam-like consistency.
This microgel, Cho believes, could be a versatile building block for many eco-friendly materials, including paper, film, and sponges. A lot of people think of pollen, when it's not fertilizing plants or feeding insects, as useless dust, but it has valuable applications if you know how to work with it, says Cho, who coauthored an overview of pollen's prospective applications in the 2024 Annual Review of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He's not the only scientist to think so.
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