But the results were mixed. The size wasn't always uniform, and hence, neither were the properties. Instead of building the cages one molecule at a time, Young and Douglas are stealing them. It evolved to survive in many different chemical environments. We're just hijacking nature.
Some shells are rod-shaped, some are spheres.
Many are well enough studied that scientists know their exact size and shape inside and out. The shells, or pots, have lids that can open and close, so Young envisions chemicals going into the pot, a chemical reaction occurs, the lid closes, the pot gets transported to another location, the lid opens and out come the contents. Young said the approach is so new that when the patent application was filed, a patent search yielded nothing even remotely similar. It was so obvious once the connection was made that we had to keep quiet about it. It looked a lot like a protein he studies called ferritin.