Seminar

While bio-inspired nanotechnology has been dominated by the utilization of more complex building blocks such as proteins, peptides, and nucleic acids, the use of simple metabolite units for technological applications is still very limited, thus raising a genuine unmet need to explore this direction. This is in marked contrast to the extensive utilization of metabolite assemblies in biological systems across all kingdoms of life allowing organisms to achieve diversified functional characteristics. Importantly, due to their natural occurrence in the human body, as well as in commonly consumed foods, metabolite assemblies may provide the basis for a new, highly eco-friendly, biocompatible, and cost-effective nanotechnology frontier. In my talk, I will present a broad overview of the diverse properties of metabolite self-assembled supramolecular structures, suggest the potential use of such assemblies in various technological applications, including mechanical reinforcement, electronic devices, optical devices, catalysis, electronics, piezoelectricity, and spintronics. Taking examples from my present and past research, I will briefly discuss about the bioinspired supramolecular materials based on the metabolite for various applications including material science, environmental remediation, energy research, and biomedical sciences. Based on these findings and existing challenges, I will try to derive perspectives on the future course of research in each of these areas for the next few years for potential nanotechnology applications.