[Music plays and CSIRO logo appears on screen with text: Seashells inspire breakthrough in biotechnology]

[Image changes to show an animated sea snail moving over the CSIRO logo]

Narrator: Living creatures like sea snails and sea urchins develop protective shells or exoskeletons to protect and support their soft tissue.

[Image changes to show an animation of a sea urchin, and then shows the sea urchin growing spikey shells]

Inspired by nature, we’ve mimicked this process by developing a ‘shell’ that grows around fragile biomolecules such as proteins and enzymes to protect them inside.

[Image changes to show an animation of the biomolecules forming a shell around them]

Made of metal organic frameworks or MOFs, the shell is extremely porous and has tiny holes which act as pores.

[Above described animation continues to play as it spins around and shows the cage-like structure]

The shell protects important biological proteins so that they stay effective when exposed to heat.

[Image changes to show an animation of a flame to the molecules to demonstrate heat. All the regular molecules degrade and fall away while the shell covered molecule remains intact]

As well as remain robust against bacteria

[Image changes to show an animation of the shell covered molecule amongst regular molecules travelling in the air, with a Pac man figure appearing which chews through all the regular molecules while the shell covered molecule remains intact failing to penetrate the MOF shell]

And so that their properties do not degrade in other hostile environments

[Image changes to show an animation of a person eating a pill, it moves down her throat to inside the stomach, and demonstrates the shell covered molecules surviving versus the regular molecules]

This development overcomes a critical challenge in biotechnology. It paves the way to creating new, more effective drugs, preserving vaccines and increasing their shelf-life, better screening for genetic tests, developing new and improved consumer products, improving food and chemical processing and new water treatments.

These are products that will improve the everyday lives and health of people around the globe.

We’re now seeking industry partners to help develop these exciting new technologies and bring them to the world.

[CSIRO logo appears on the screen with text: www.csiro.au]