Interactive materials: guiding rational design through biomolecular characterization

当你想到材料时，你可能会想到有用物品的积木，比如建筑用的木头，衣服用的布料，或者罐子用的铜。不可否认，材料已经从这些早期的自然例子发展到包括合成物质，如玻璃，尼龙和钢。随着我们的工程能力和需求的增加，对新型材料的需求也越来越大。一个例子是响应于外部刺激的响应材料，例如压电材料，其响应于施加的电场而改变形状，或者药物胶囊，其响应于温度和pH而熔化以释放药物。在局部水平上微调材料特性和响应的能力是当前许多研究的目标，例如制造自我修复系统，或者规定微观或纳米级运动的路径，这可以引导药物输送或激活到非常特定的位置。

When you think about materials, building blocks for useful objects might spring to mind, such as wood for buildings, cloth for clothing, or copper for pots. Undeniably, materials have advanced from these early natural examples to include synthetic substances such as fibreglass, nylon and steel. As our engineering capabilities and needs increase, there is ever more demand for novel materials. One example is responsive materials that respond to external stimuli, such as piezoelectrics, which change shape in response to applied electric fields, or drug capsules, which melt to release medicine in response to temperature and pH. The ability to fine-tune material properties and response at a local level is an aim of much current research, for example to make self-healing systems, or to prescribe pathways for microscopic or nanoscopic motion, which could guide drug delivery or activation to very specific locations.