Many building blocks of living organisms are nanoscale in dimension. Their size enables them to undergo Brownian motion and self-assemble into complex hierarchical materials. Furthermore, the energy for the construction of these materials is drawn from ambient thermal energy, which makes cellular machinery reach energy efficiencies of 89-95 percent. Can some parts of such materials and machinery be reproduced using abiotic, inorganic building blocks? The current body of knowledge accumulated for inorganic nanoscale particles leads to a definite “yes” for some and definite “no” for others. We have dedicated our research efforts to understanding the dividing line between these answers.

Nicholas A. Kotov has appointments in chemical engineering, biomedical engineering, materials science and engineering, macromolecular science and engineering, and the Biointerfaces Institute at the University of Michigan. He uses nanoscale fibers and particles to design and build materials that solve specific problems in biology, medicine, environmental science, chemistry, pharmaceuticals and any other field with a problem that captures his interest.