Creation of activating molecular device including energy conversion mechanism

As technology has improved immeasurably over the past few decades, scientists have been able to do remarkable things that are directly inspired by molecules and macromolecules. Indeed, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 was awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L Feringa for designing and producing molecular machines. It seems almost inconceivable that such a thing could be achieved - synthetic molecules with controllable movements that are able to perform a task when energy is added. Although the science behind this achievement is extremely complex, the principle is actually quite simple. The molecular machine receives stimuli and reacts to it. These molecular machines exist biologically and are responsible for such things as DNA replication, but the Nobel Prize winners were able to create a synthetic version that converted chemical energy into motion. Of course, since then researchers around the world have started performing their own investigations to explore the potential of molecular engines and gain a full understanding of what they might facilitate in the future. Professor Kazushi Kinbara is the head of the Kinbara Group based within the School of Life Science and Technology at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan. Kinbara is currently working with a team of experts from 36 research groups based in approximately 30 Japanese Universities and Institutes to design and produce synthetic molecular devices which can perform autonomous functions based on energy conversion.