Engineering Biomedical Function in Supramolecular Nanomaterial

Engineering Biomedical Function in Supramolecular Nanomaterial

Organic chemistry offers tremendous opportunities for the synthesis of small molecules with the ability to spontaneously self-organize into well-defined supramolecular architectures under a defined set of physical conditions. Over the past several years we have developed and utilized a new class of heteropolycyclic molecules to explore hydrogen bonding in water, self-replication in auto-catalytic systems, supramolecular chirality, and the underlying physical phenomena of self-assembly and self-organization processes.

With this knowledge in hand, we were able to tailor the chemical, physical, and biological properties of 1-D tubular nanostructures for applications in the emerging fields of nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine. This lecture is an overview of the design, synthesis, and physical characterization of self-assembled organic nanotubes, and their medical applications.