Our Research Mission and Vision
Engineering Life-Like Materials and Systems
Living systems do more than respond to their environment. They process information, regulate themselves, communicate, adapt, learn and evolve. Our long-term vision is to translate such capabilities into synthetic materials and systems.
We seek to understand the molecular and physical principles that allow matter to organize, operate and adapt autonomously—and to use these principles to create next generation soft materials with genuinely new levels of functionality. Our research spans fundamental systems chemistry, synthetic biology and materials science, while reaching toward autonomous soft matter systems, artificial cells as intelligent agents, soft robotics and adaptive mechanical materials, and interactive biomaterials.
Click for Link (Introduction is Open Access)
Our approach: Co-designing Matter and Embodied Intelligence
We design materials and intelligence as an inseparable whole. The molecular composition and architecture determine how a system senses, processes and transmits information (i.e. "the body"), while its regulatory and feedback mechanisms determine how the material organizes, adapts, evolves and functions (i.e. "the brain").
The body: We combine design strategies from complementary scientific worlds: DNA nanoscience provides programmable design, dynamics and information storage. Polymer chemistry offers mechanical function, responsiveness and access to 3D-printed multiscale materials. Supramolecular chemistry introduces reversible interactions and molecular reconfiguration.
The brain: We use concepts from chemical reaction networks and synthetic biology to enable molecular computation, feedback, communication and autonomous dynamics as a form of chemical intelligence, while mechanical and architected metamaterials introduce physical decision-making and feedback as a form of physical intelligence.
By bringing these elements together, we create life-like molecular, artificial cell and materials systems with embodied intelligence following the Sensor-Processor-Actuator paradigm and with the capacity for self-regulation, adaptation, communication, reconfiguration and learning—all while operating out of equilibrium and tapping into energy sources of their environment to drive them.
Beyond Established Boundaries
Transformative materials rarely emerge from following established disciplinary paths. We therefore seek connections between fields that are rarely considered together and pursue fundamental questions whose applications may not yet be obvious.
We deliberately create space for unconventional ideas and intellectually ambitious experiments—particularly when they offer the potential to establish fundamentally new approaches. By moving between chemistry, biology, physics and materials science, we aim to develop concepts that go beyond improving existing materials and open new possibilities for how synthetic matter can function.
Our aim is not simply to follow emerging research directions, but to help create them.
Two Key Reviews and Viewpoint Articles + One Wiley Book:
Andreas Walther “From Responsive to Adaptive and Interactive Materials and Materials Systems: A Roadmap” Adv. Mater. 1905111, 2019 LINK
Invited View Point for a Special Issue on "Interactive Materials"
Merindol, R.; Walther, A. “Materials Learning from Life: Concepts for Active, Adaptive and Autonomous Molecular Systems” Chem. Soc. Rev. 46, 5588, 2017. LINK
Invited Review a special issue on “Chemical Systems Out of Equilibrium”.
