Nature demonstrates the efficiency of hierarchically integrated components that work in cooperation to produce a variety of useful phenomena in organisms, such as movement or shape change. A key feature of these components ...

Two main challenges hinder the development of new, broadly useful C–H functionalization reactions: (1) most C–H bonds constitute part of the relatively inert backbone of an organic molecule, so it is difficult to elicit ...

Controlling nano to microscale structuration enables one to alter a material’s optical, wetting, mechanical, and chemical properties. Structuration on this scale can be formed from spherical building blocks; in particular, ...

Mechanical forces in the cell’s natural environment have a crucial impact on growth and behavior, from single-cell gene expression and cell division to the spatial patterning of complex organ architectures. Few areas of ...

Gram-negative bacteria are more difficult to kill than Gram-positive bacteria due to the presence of an outer membrane that prevents many antibiotics from reaching their cellular targets. The outer membrane is an asymmetric ...

Darwinian evolution gave rise to biopolymers with a myriad of folded structures and functions, as well as all the diverse life forms on earth that are supported by those molecules. Amazingly, the essence of molecular ...

Life on earth may have first appeared in the form of a protocell capable of metabolism and containing a self-replicating informational polymer. This polymer was likely to have been RNA due to its ability to serve both as ...

Advances in chemical biology provide immense benefits to human health through the discovery of new medicines and new scientific tools to study disease. I have contributed to the advancement of this field by developing a ...

Paper (and other cellulose-based materials such as cotton thread and fabrics) are underexploited as materials for the construction of “high-tech” and “lab-on-a-chip” devices. One major drawback of paper is its tendency to ...

Semiconductor nanowire materials and devices provide unique opportunities in the frontier between nanoelectronics and biology. The bottom-up paradigm enables flexible synthesis and patterning of nanoscale building blocks ...