1 Imitating life, CU-Boulder

Traditional medicine has asserted for some time that cartilage does not grow back. Professor Kristi Anseth, working at the crossroads of engineering, chemistry and biology, is challenging that assertion. She has been perfecting polymers that the body responds to as if they were living tissue; using them as scaffolding to, for instance, help regrow cartilage. She is now developing liquids to be injected into the body, which are then hardened with ultraviolet light to be replaced by natural tissue as it fills in. Her technology may have applications for heart defects, bone and tissue regrowth, producing insulin in diabetics and even brain tissue regeneration.


2 Fully charged, CSU

The world has plenty of applications for a battery that is a 1,000 times more powerful and lasts 10 times longer than lithium ion batteries while accepting a full charge in only five minutes. That is exactly what chemistry professor Amy Prieto is working on with steady progress. The sponge-like "3D lithium-ion" batteries will be cheap to produce and be highly recyclable. And for some, the best part lies in the fact that citric acid is the most corrosive thing used to