www.rsc.org/softmatter Registered Charity Number 207890 Showcasing research from the lab of Bio-Materials and Technology, University Distinguished Prof. Xiuzhi Susan Sun in the Department of Grain Science and Industry at Kansas State University, U.S.A. Title: Design of a shear-thinning recoverable peptide hydrogel from native sequences and application for inluenza H1N1 vaccine adjuvant A self-assembling peptide was designed and synthesized by rationally combining two native sequences from an elastic segment of spider silk and a trans-membrane segment of human muscle L-type calcium channel. The peptide forms two distinct hydrogels in Ca 2+ solution and acidic pH conditions. The shear-thinning, rapid-strength-recovering Ca 2+ hydrogel has great potential for drug delivery and tissue engineering applications, for example, as an H1N1 inluenza vaccine adjuvant. As featured in: See Hongzhou Huang et al., Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 8905.