Regulating molecular assembly with chemical fuels—Spinning ribbons, dissipative structures, and an approach towards synthetic life
Job Boekhoven, PhD
Department of Bioscience, Technical University of Munich
Abstract-Molecular self-assembly is the process in which molecules combine into superstructures held together through non-covalent interactions. Over the last decades, supramolecular chemists have perfected this art, and we can now create Gigadalton structures in which each atom is placed with angstrom precision. More importantly, the unique properties of the emerging assemblies have found their way into everyday life, like, for example, the liquid crystals in our displays. Nevertheless, biology entirely overshadows us regarding assembly with molecular building blocks. Indeed, the biological cell has the same molecular toolbox for creating structures; it also uses non-covalent interactions to hold molecules together. Biology uses another trick. Biological structures are governed not only by non-covalent interactions but also by reactions forming covalent ones. Arguably, molecular self-assembly offers the structures; chemical reactions govern the dynamics and functions of these structures. Biological structures are sustained and regulated in the non-equilibrium regime through chemical reaction cycles that convert energy. The implications, rules, and mechanisms there are poorly understood.
In this lecture, I will discuss my team’s effort to elucidate the rules of non-equilibrium self-assembly regulated by chemical reaction cycles. Next, I will describe a simple yet versatile chemical reaction cycle that can be coupled to self-assembly to create chemically fueled assemblies. Finally, I will highlight three recent examples of chemically fueled, non-equilibrium assemblies with vastly different properties than their in-equilibrium counterparts—ribbons that spin spontaneously as they consume fuel and dissipative droplets that periodically form and dissolve when fueled continuously. I will close the lecture with our vision towards synthetic life.
Bio-Job Boekhoven is an Associate Professor at the Bioscience Department of the Technical University of Munich in Germany. He received his PhD in Chemistry under Prof. Jan van Esch and Prof. Rienk Eelkema from the TU Delft in 2012. After a postdoc at Northwestern University (2010-2013), he started his independent group in 2016 at the Institute for Advanced Study at the Technical University of Munich as a Rudolf Mössbauer Professor. His honors include an ERC Starting grant (2016) and an ERC Consolidator grant (2024). He has received the VCI – Dozentenpreis and is a Max Planck Fellow in the school Matter to Life.
Job Boekhoven is developing tools to regulate the self-assembly of molecules the way biology does. He is best known for his work on chemically fueled reaction cycles that control the ability of molecules to assemble or phase separate. The resulting materials show exciting new properties, such as their intrinsic ability to self-heal or their controllable lifetime. Moreover, the chemically fueled assemblies manifest features we usually associate with living cells, like the ability to emerge, decay, or even self-divide.