Velcro. Airplanes. Sonar. What do these have in common? The invention of each was inspired by nature. Velcro mimics burdock burr's ability to attach to clothing. Birds in flight motivated the eventual development of airplanes. Bats use echolocation to navigate, providing the inspiration for sonar.
At Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), materials scientist Chun-Long Chen is also interested in the models found in nature, but on a much smaller scale. Chen takes his inspiration from molecular structures found in nature; primarily from the building blocks of proteins, called peptides. He creates sequence defined peptoids—synthetic protein-like molecules that are more robust than natural building blocks—to develop biomimetic nanomaterials with unique functions.
These bio-inspired nanomaterials show promise in a wide variety of applications, from drug delivery to photovoltaics. As an emerging leader in molecular self-assembly, Chen, along with several of his former trainees, recently wrote a review article for an upcoming special issue of Chemical Reviews. This article covers the state of the art in hierarchical nanomaterials assembled from sequence-defined synthetic polymers. Through this review, the authors hope to encourage others in related fields to explore the design of biomimetic nanomaterials for advanced energy, biomedical, and environmental applications.
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