User:ProfGbattaglia

Molecular Bionics employs a constructionist approach where biological complexity is mimicked in the form of design principles to produce functional units from simple building blocks and their interactions. Such an effort is multidisciplinary and involves inputs from Chemistry, Physics, Material Science and Engineering from one side and Cell and Molecular Biology, and Physiology from the other side. Molecular bionics allows the synthesis of hierarchal materials whose properties are the result of the holistic combination of its components. Material design is typically achieved combining synthetic and supramolecular chemistry to tune inter/intramolecular interactions and self-assembly processes to form dynamic materials whose molecular, supramolecular and mesoscale structures are tuned and fit for the final application. These materials are often designed to interact with living systems, and thus its biological activity is studied in high detail. In analogy to medical Bionics, where engineering and physical science converge to the design of replacement and enhancement of malfunctioning body parts. Molecular bionics takes inspiration from biological structures such as cells, proteins, viruses, and vesicles to apply molecular engineering to create nanoscopic carriers that can navigate the human body with the final aim to improve drug delivery or create new diagnostic tools. Finally, molecular bionics overlaps with synthetic biology to create biological surrogates ex novo that can serve as model systems to understand biological complexity.