Biomimetic molecules as building blocks for synthetic muscles - A proposal

Abstract

The goal of this proposal is to cast biomolecular motors as the model for designing wholly artificial motor-molecules to serve as the building blocks for synthetic muscles. At the level of the single molecule, the artificial machines will be constructed from chemically powered motor-molecules with mechanically interlocked components. On the molecular ensemble level, the motor-molecules will be coherently self-organized on to surfaces in order to harness the cooperative operation of each motor-molecule in unison, consuming chemical energy to perform mechanical work up to the micro scale. These structures could be stacked in series to form artificial muscle tissue displaying large distance contraction and extension and to serve as a standard module for analogous applications on the meso scale. In the first phase of this work, the synthesis of the motor-molecules for attachment on surfaces is proposed, together with demonstrable nanoscale actuation as the target deliverable.