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Molecular Machines

Tiny steps

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A molecular 'walker' can be made to move up and down a molecular 'track' by alternately locking and unlocking the two different types of covalent bonds that join the two components together. By changing the conditions under which one of the bond-forming/bond-breaking processes occurs, a directional bias for walking can be achieved.

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Figure 1: Schematic representation of how a molecule featuring a thiol foot (blue) and a hydrazide foot (red) can walk along a short linear track with four stepping stones (numbered 1–4).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sijbren Otto is at the Centre for Systems Chemistry, Stratingh Institute, University of Groningen, 9747 AG Groningen, The Netherlands. s.otto@rug.nl,

    Sijbren Otto

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  1. Sijbren Otto
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Otto, S. Tiny steps. Nature Chem 2, 75–76 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchem.525

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