Phosphorescent oxygen-sensing by a biosynthetic silk.

The use of proteins to immobilise photosensitisers is an exciting but relatively unexplored research area. In our latest paper we describe the immobilisation of heavy-metal macrocycles within a coiled-coil silk protein from honeybees. These new functional materials could be used in biomedical applications, such as wound dressings, to monitor oxygen levels within the wound and treat microbial infections