These miniature frogs make their nests with special foam. The same froth could help create longer-lasting topical antibiotics for humans.
The túngara frog is a creature perhaps easily overlooked. Each measuring just around an inch, these frogs have rough brown skin that helps them disappear among the foliage of the forests and wetlands they call home in Central America and the shores of the Caribbean.
It’s what happens next that interests drug designers: The female produces a gelatinous protein slurry, which the male then whips into a foam they both use to shape into a nest for their eggs., a microbiologist at Strathclyde University in Glasgow and one of the paper authors. “Most foams we see are the result of denatured, inactive proteins, such as the foam on a pint of beer.”
Those protective and long-lasting qualities caught the eye of scientists looking to make better pharmaceuticals. Similar synthetic foams are already used as vehicles to deliver topical medicines, but they suffer from certain drawbacks. In particular, most synthetic foams only last for minutes or hours; a product based on túngara foam could be useful for much longer.
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