A Molecular Motor

Boston College, Chestnut Hill MA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Motion is central and essential - to life. During the past several decades enormous effort has been invested in attempting to learn how biological motors - such as muscles, flagella and cilia - operate. But even now there is little understanding, at least at the atomic level of detail, how chemically powered motors achieve directed motion. We now propose to construct a rationally designed molecular motor that may provide some insight into how biological - and other - molecular scale motors work. The motor operates as a single molecule and is powered by coupling unidirectional molecular movement with the energy released in the hydrolysis of phosgene to carbon dioxide and HCI. In the initial period of this project we achieved two functioning prototypes of the first non-natural, chemically powered molecular motor. We now propose to complete the task by elaborating the prototypes into fully operational, continuously rotating systems. The project will entail synthesis and evaluation at several levels of complexity, building on the knowledge gained from the work with the prototypes and culminating in a fully functioning version, with feedback at each step serving to refine the design of the next stage. The project should expand the understanding of chemically directed and controlled movement, which is a topic central to the understanding of biological systems.