Powering Nanodevices with Biomolecular Motors

Biomolecular motors, in particular motor proteins, are ideally suited to introduce chemically powered movement of selected components into devices engineered at the micro‐ and nanoscale level. The design of such hybrid “bio/nano”‐devices requires suitable synthetic environments, and the identificati...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Chemistry : a European journal 2004-05, Vol.10 (9), p.2110-2116
Main Authors: Hess, Henry, Bachand, George D., Vogel, Viola
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Genetic Engineering
Kinesin - chemistry
Miniaturization
molecular devices
Molecular Motor Proteins
motor proteins
nanostructures
Nanotechnology
surface chemistry
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Biomolecular motors, in particular motor proteins, are ideally suited to introduce chemically powered movement of selected components into devices engineered at the micro‐ and nanoscale level. The design of such hybrid “bio/nano”‐devices requires suitable synthetic environments, and the identification of unique applications. We discuss current approaches to utilize active transport and actuation on a molecular scale, and we give an outlook to the future. Nature's molecular machines! Biomolecular motors, in particular motor proteins, can introduce active movement into nanotechnology. As shown in the figure, the motor protein kinesin moves a vesicle along a microtubule, a process which is the cellular equivalent of high‐speed transport. This inspires the assembly of nanoscale transport systems powered by biomolecular motors. The design of such hybrid “bio/nano”‐devices requires suitable synthetic environments, and the identification of unique applications. We discuss recent proof‐of‐principle experiments, which demonstrate active transport and actuation on a molecular scale, and give an outlook to the future.
ISSN:0947-6539
1521-3765
DOI:10.1002/chem.200305712