The cubic polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes based hybrid materials have a wide variety of applications, including drug administration, gene therapy, biological imaging, and bone regeneration

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moataz Dowaidar

The cubic polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSS), which has a well-defined compact frame, high symmetry, and various modified organic substitutes, has received much interest as one of the most critical building blocks for hybrid nanomaterials and self-assembly driven amphiphilics. This work assessed current molecular design advances, solution self-assembly capabilities, and anticipated biological applications of POSS-based hybrid materials. By adopting controlled/living polymerization techniques and considerable advancements in efficient chemical coupling techniques, preparation techniques for topological POSS-based hybrid materials have become a rapidly increasing research field with future advances. The resultant POSS hybrids with various functional groups help to create complicated, unique self-assembled morphologies in solutions, induced by discrete intermolecular interactions. POSS-based hybrid materials have a wide variety of applications, including drug administration, gene therapy, biological imaging, and bone regeneration, due to their particular benefits (such as high biocompatibility, low cytototoxicity, and good degradability) and simplicity of self-assembly behaviour.

2016 ◽  
Vol 04 (01) ◽  
pp. 1640003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hesheng Victor Xu ◽  
Xin Ting Zheng ◽  
Beverly Yin Leng Mok ◽  
Salwa Ali Ibrahim ◽  
Yong Yu ◽  
...  

Biomolecules are the nanoscale building blocks of cells, which play multifaceted roles in the critical biological processes such as biomineralization in a living organism. In these processes, the biological molecules such as protein and nucleic acids use their exclusive biorecognition properties enabled from their unique chemical composition, shape and function to initiate a cascade of cellular events. The exceptional features of these biomolecules, coupled with the recent advancement in nanotechnology, have led to the emergence of a new research field that focuses on the molecular design of bioinspired nanostructures that inherit the extraordinary function of natural biomaterials. These “bioinspired” nanostructures could be formulated by biomimetic approaches through either self-assembling of biomolecules or acting as a biomolecular template/precursor to direct the synthesis of nanocomposite. In either situation, the resulting nanomaterials exhibit phenomenal biocompatibility, superb aqueous solubility and excellent colloidal stability, branding them exceptionally desirable for both in vitro and in vivo biomedical applications. In this review, we will present the recent developments in the preparation of “bioinspired” nanostructures through biomimetic self-assembly and biotemplating synthesis, as well as highlight their functional properties and potential applications in biomedical diagnostics and therapeutic delivery. Lastly, we will conclude this topic with some personal perspective on the challenges and future outlooks of the “bioinspired” nanostructures for nanomedicine.


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hueyling Tan

Molecular self-assembly is ubiquitous in nature and has emerged as a new approach to produce new materials in chemistry, engineering, nanotechnology, polymer science and materials. Molecular self-assembly has been attracting increasing interest from the scientific community in recent years due to its importance in understanding biology and a variety of diseases at the molecular level. In the last few years, considerable advances have been made in the use ofpeptides as building blocks to produce biological materials for wide range of applications, including fabricating novel supra-molecular structures and scaffolding for tissue repair. The study ofbiological self-assembly systems represents a significant advancement in molecular engineering and is a rapidly growing scientific and engineering field that crosses the boundaries ofexisting disciplines. Many self-assembling systems are rangefrom bi- andtri-block copolymers to DNA structures as well as simple and complex proteins andpeptides. The ultimate goal is to harness molecular self-assembly such that design andcontrol ofbottom-up processes is achieved thereby enabling exploitation of structures developed at the meso- and macro-scopic scale for the purposes oflife and non-life science applications. Such aspirations can be achievedthrough understanding thefundamental principles behind the selforganisation and self-synthesis processes exhibited by biological systems.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel B. Straus ◽  
Robert J. Cava

The design of new chiral materials usually requires stereoselective organic synthesis to create molecules with chiral centers. Less commonly, achiral molecules can self-assemble into chiral materials, despite the absence of intrinsic molecular chirality. Here, we demonstrate the assembly of high-symmetry molecules into a chiral van der Waals structure by synthesizing crystals of C<sub>60</sub>(SnI<sub>4</sub>)<sub>2</sub> from icosahedral buckminsterfullerene (C<sub>60</sub>) and tetrahedral SnI4 molecules through spontaneous self-assembly. The SnI<sub>4</sub> tetrahedra template the Sn atoms into a chiral cubic three-connected net of the SrSi<sub>2</sub> type that is held together by van der Waals forces. Our results represent the remarkable emergence of a self-assembled chiral material from two of the most highly symmetric molecules, demonstrating that almost any molecular, nanocrystalline, or engineered precursor can be considered when designing chiral assemblies.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Leonhardt ◽  
Jeff M. Van Raden ◽  
David Miller ◽  
Lev N. Zakharov ◽  
Benjamin Aleman ◽  
...  

Extended carbon nanostructures, such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs), exhibit remarkable properties but are difficult to synthesize uniformly. Herein, we present a new class of carbon nanomaterials constructed via the bottom-up self-assembly of cylindrical, atomically-precise small molecules. Guided by supramolecular design principles and circle packing theory, we have designed and synthesized a fluorinated nanohoop that, in the solid-state, self-assembles into nanotube-like arrays with channel diameters of precisely 1.63 nm. A mild solution-casting technique is then used to construct vertical “forests” of these arrays on a highly-ordered pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) surface through epitaxial growth. Furthermore, we show that a basic property of nanohoops, fluorescence, is readily transferred to the bulk phase, implying that the properties of these materials can be directly altered via precise functionalization of their nanohoop building blocks. The strategy presented is expected to have broader applications in the development of new graphitic nanomaterials with π-rich cavities reminiscent of CNTs.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niamh Mac Fhionnlaoich ◽  
Stephen Schrettl ◽  
Nicholas B. Tito ◽  
Ye Yang ◽  
Malavika Nair ◽  
...  

The arrangement of nanoscale building blocks into patterns with microscale periodicity is challenging to achieve via self-assembly processes. Here, we report on the phase transition-driven collective assembly of gold nanoparticles in a thermotropic liquid crystal. A temperature-induced transition from the isotropic to the nematic phase leads to the assembly of individual nanometre-sized particles into arrays of micrometre-sized aggregates, whose size and characteristic spacing can be tuned by varying the cooling rate. This fully reversible process offers hierarchical control over structural order on the molecular, nanoscopic, and microscopic level and is an interesting model system for the programmable patterning of nanocomposites with access to micrometre-sized periodicities.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Banger ◽  
Julian Sindram ◽  
Marius Otten ◽  
Jessica Kania ◽  
Alexander Strzelczyk ◽  
...  

We present the synthesis of so called amphiphilic glycomacromolecules (APGs) by using solid-phase polymer synthesis. Based on tailor made building blocks, monosdisperse APGs with varying compositions are synthesized, introducing carbohydrate...


2006 ◽  
pp. 4847-4849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bulusu Jagannadh ◽  
Marepally Srinivasa Reddy ◽  
Chennamaneni Lohitha Rao ◽  
Anabathula Prabhakar ◽  
Bharatam Jagadeesh ◽  
...  

Soft Matter ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiawei Lu ◽  
Xiangyu Bu ◽  
Xinghua Zhang ◽  
Bing Liu

The shapes of colloidal particles are crucial to the self-assembled superstructures. Understanding the relationship between the shapes of building blocks and the resulting crystal structures is an important fundamental question....


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