Living systems rely on ions and molecules for gathering, elaborating storing information, as well controlling motion across different length scales. Artificial mimics of such biomolecular systems, i.e., logic devices mechanical machines, have been developed in the past decades. Here we discuss their combination to produce logic-controlled nanomachines, a research that holds great potential basi...

T he molecular ratchet is a seductive concept for nanoscientists. If particles can be made to travel past a barrier in just one direction, pressure will build at the receiving end, which can, in principle, be used to perform useful work. A springloaded one-way gate that fast-moving molecules can push open and pass through would be especially attractive. Th e energy needed to create the pressure...

“When we get to the very, very small world ... we have a lot of new things that would happen that represent completely new opportunities for design ... At the atomic level we have new kinds of forces and new kinds of possibilities, new kinds of effects. The problem of manufacture and reproduction of materials will be quite different ... inspired by biological phenomena in which chemical forces ...

This review is focused on the mechanisms by which ATP binding and hydrolysis drive chaperone machines assisting protein folding and unfolding. A survey of the key, general chaperone systems Hsp70 and Hsp90, and the unfoldase Hsp100 is followed by a focus on the Hsp60 chaperonin machine which is understood in most detail. Cryo-electron microscopy analysis of the E. coli Hsp60 GroEL reveals inter...

The evolution of life facilitates the creation of biological molecular machines. In these so-called 'nanomachines,' nature elegantly shows that when precisely organized and assembled, simple molecular mechanical components can link motions efficiently from the nanometer scale to the macroscopic world, and achieve complex functions such as powering skeletal muscles, synthesizing ATP and producin...

Molecular motor proteins, fueled by energy from ATP hydrolysis, move along actin filaments or microtubules, performing work in the cell. The kinesin microtubule motors transport vesicles or organelles, assemble bipolar spindles or depolymerize microtubules, functioning in basic cellular processes. The mechanism by which motor proteins convert energy from ATP hydrolysis into work is likely to di...

Biological systems at the molecular level are composed of hierarchically structured objects that continuously interact and influence each other by directly altering each others' composition. The software in many technology systems is hierarchically constructed using objects that pass messages to each other which then trigger transitions in finite state machines. On the surface these appear to b...