The Plant Age; Materials for the Future; Nature’s Gift

Bringing together the toughness, the piezoelectric properties of cellulose nano-fibers from the plant kingdom, the remarkable elasticity and resilience of resilin that enables flees to jump as high as 100 times their height from the insect kingdom combined with Human Recombinant Type I collagen produced in tobacco plants; These are the materials of the future; Nature’s Gift. Resilin is a polymeric rubber-like protein secreted by insects to specialized cuticle regions, in areas where high resilience and low stiffness are required. Plant cell wall composite exhibit extraordinary strength exemplified by their ability to carry the huge mass of some forest trees. Inspired by the remarkable mechanical properties of insect cuticle and plant cell walls we have developed novel composite materials of resilin and Crystalline Nano-Cellulose (resilin-CNC) that display remarkable mechanical properties combining strength and elasticity. Further investigation of CNC films revealed remarkable piezoelectric properties, Chiral Induced Spin Selectivity (CISS), which holds great potential in sustainable energy storage and optoelectronics. As a central element of the extracellular matrix, collagen is central in tissue regeneration and wound healing. A tobacco plant expression platform has been recruited to effectively express human collagen. This is Nature’s Gift.

Prof. Oded Shoseyov
Plant Molecular Biology and Nano Biotechnology. Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Prof. Oded Shoseyov

BIOGRAPHY

A faculty member of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Prof. Shoseyov’s research is in plant molecular biology protein engineering and nano-biotechnology. His group focus on Bio-Inspired Nanocomposite materials. He has authored or co-authored more than 350 scientific publications and is the inventor or co-inventor of more than 100 patents. Shoseyov is a TED speaker. His talk is translated to 22 languages with more than 1.8 million views:

Shoseyov is also co-owner and winemaker of BRAVDO winery named after his mentor, and partner Prof. Ben Ami Bravdo. Prof. Shoseyov received the Outstanding Scientist Polak Award for 2002, the 1999 and 2010 Kay Award for Innovative and Applied Research, The 2012 Israel Prime Minister Citation for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, The 2018 Presidential Award for his contribution to the Economy and Society of Israel and The 2024 Landau Award for Biotechnology. Shoseyov is the scientific founder of 20 companies, among them are Futuragene an Agro-biotech forestry company www.futuragene.com, Collplant an Agro-biotech/regenerative medicine company, www.collplant.com, Biobetter a Biopharming company https://biobetter.bio/, SavorEat, Transforming Foodservice Operation with AI and Robotics https://savor-eat.com/, Smart Resilin, biomimetic company https://www.smartresilin.com/, Melodea, sustainable barrier coatings for the packaging industry www.melodea.eu.