Molecular Machines: Materials

Presenters Guillaume Vives, Institut Parisien de Chimie Moléculair Guillaume Vives is an associate professor at Sorbonne University, Institut Parisien de Chimie Moléculair. His research interests include: Supramolecular chemistry, Coordination chemistry, Organic synthesis, and Molecular machines. His current work is focused on Polyrotaxanes for bimodal imaging, Switchable molecular tweezers, and Cyclodextrin-based molecular machine… Read More Tom Schroeder, Harvard Tom Schroeder is a postdoc in Joanna Aizenberg’s lab at Harvard. His doctoral research focused on energy transduction from gradients of various species across lipid and polymer membranes in bio-inspired systems.Tom received a Postdoc.Mobility fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation to work on stimuli-responsive hydrogels in the Aizenberg group… Read More  Molecular Machines: Materials Switchable molecular tweezers: Guillaume Vives, Institut Parisien de Chimie Moleculaire  Optical, magnetic, redox, or catalytic triggers can be used to alter molecular structureMolecular machines include catenanes, nanocars, turnstille, motors, walkers, shuttles, and musclesMolecular tweezers switch between open and closed states using allosteric effectsMetal coordination is used for the switching unit, while luminescence/magnetism/catalysis is used for the functional armsMolecular tweezers have been developed using optical, magnetic, redox, and catalytic triggersGuillaume is interested in controlling gels using these molecular tweezers How can we make the work done by molecular machines on the nanoscale be useful on the macroscale?  In materials? : Tom Schroeder, Harvard University Crystal propagation can translate work on the nanoscale to macroscaleDual lattice structures create interesting mechanical propertiesNanoscale interactions govern crystal growth in living organisms, such as sea urchin spines and antifreeze proteinsTom works with exothermic crystalline growth and uses photomasking to create custom crystal formations  Visible Light DLP Chemical Micropatterning : Uroob Haris, Southern Methodist University Developed a method to do microscopic patterning of light to trigger light-enabled chemistry500 nm precisionThiol-ene photoclick chemistry and Diazoketone wolff rearrangement are usedCan pattern chemical processes on single cellsMicroscopic 3D printingApplications in the future could include self-propelled micromotors, volumetric 3d printing, drug loaded microcapsules, and high resolution lithography