Organic Supramolecular Chemistry: A Research Programme on Synthetic Molecular Motors and Machines

或许，理解受控分子水平运动的技术潜力的最好方法是认识到纳米电机和分子水平的机器位于每一个重要的生物过程的核心。经过数十亿年的进化，大自然并没有在没有充分理由的情况下反复选择这种解决方案来实现复杂的任务性能。与生物学形成鲜明对比的是，当今人类无数奇妙的技术中，没有一项以任何方式利用受控的分子水平运动：每一种催化剂、每一种材料、每一种聚合物、每一种药物、每一种化学试剂，都完全通过它们的静态或平衡动态性质发挥作用。当我们学习如何构建能够控制和利用分子水平运动的人工结构，并将其作用直接与其他分子水平的亚结构和外部世界相接口时，它将潜在地影响到功能分子和材料设计的方方面面。对物理学和生物学的更好理解肯定会随之而来。利集团是设计和建造人造分子马达和合成分子机器系统的世界领先者之一。除了准备了一些第一批合成马达和功能机器分子外，他们还用化学术语解释了棘轮的概念，并将其作为合成分子马达系统的设计概念引入。这是一个基本的工具，一旦充分开发和掌握，将允许科学家以受控的方式使化学系统偏离平衡。这项研究计划旨在扩大和利用我们对这些系统的了解，以制造更先进、更具功能的合成分子机器，包括由化学燃料驱动的分子马达、可以沿着分子轨道“行走”的合成分子结构，以及可以充当纳米机器人的人造分子机器，以合成特定序列的复杂聚合物。

Perhaps the best way to appreciate the technological potential of controlled molecular-level motion it is to recognise that nanomotors and molecular-level machines lie at the heart of every significant biological process. Over billions of years of evolution Nature has not repeatedly chosen this solution for achieving complex task performance without good reason. In stark contrast to biology, none of mankind's fantastic myriad of present day technologies exploit controlled molecular-level motion in any way at all: every catalyst, every material, every polymer, every pharmaceutical, every chemical reagent, all function exclusively through their static or equilibrium dynamic properties. When we learn how to build artificial structures that can control and exploit molecular level motion, and interface their effects directly with other molecular-level substructures and the outside world, it will potentially impact on every aspect of functional molecule and materials design. An improved understanding of physics and biology will surely follow.The Leigh group are one of the world leaders in the design and construction of artificial molecular motors and synthetic molecular machine systems. As well as having prepared some of the first synthetic motors and functional machine molecules, they have explained in chemical terms the concept of ratcheting and introduced it as a design concept for synthetic molecular motor systems. This is a fundamental tool that, once fully explored and mastered, will allow scientists to drive chemical systems away from equilibrium in a controlled manner. This research programme seeks to expand and exploit our understanding of these systems to make more advanced and more functional synthetic molecular machines, including molecular motors driven by chemical fuels, synthetic molecular structures that can 'walk' down molecular tracks, and artificial molecular machines that can act as nano-robots, synthesizing complex polymers of a particular sequence.