Nanoscopic Machines Entangle Chemical Structures (NanoMECHs)

• Applicant: Dr. Michael Kathan
• Subject Area: Organic Molecular Chemistry - Synthesis and Characterisation
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 527220272

Nature’s smallest factories, biological molecular machines, perform vital tasks in living organisms, such as driving the formation of energy carriers, transporting cellular cargo or assembling biopolymers in a sequence-specific manner. At the end of the latter biological ‘assembly line’ are chaperones and topoisomerases to precisely fold and entwine proteins and DNA; this final shaping process is essential to guarantee the proper functioning of the biomacromolecules. While modern synthetic chemistry allows for the formation of macromolecules with precise content and sequence of monomers, a general method to induce a specific three-dimensional shape/topology in polymers of any chemical composition remains highly challenging. The goal of this project is to design, build and study artificial molecular machinery that can actively bend, entangle and intertwine (macro)molecules of various chemical compositions to create interlocked chemical structures and molecular topologies that are out of reach for current state-of-the-art chemistry. Providing scientists with a nanoscopic synthesis tool to make thus far inaccessible molecules by precisely shaping their three-dimensional structure is at the heart of NanoMECHs and paves a new way to interact with matter on the molecular scale: it enables the mechanical linking of molecules, controlling the properties of polymers without changing their chemical composition or mechanochemical activation/breaking of chemical bonds, among others. This unique addition to the chemist’s toolbox would greatly advance the design space for functional molecules and materials, as it allows for the exploration of uncharted territory in chemistry and nanotechnology.

• DFG Programme: Independent Junior Research Groups