Our Research
Life is the most complex chemical system we know. Its extraordinary array of behaviours have enabled it to conquer every environmental niche on Earth. Yet we do not understand how to construct life from the bottom-up. Our research aims to uncover how to do this.
A key feature of life are its chemical reaction networks. In cells many different molecules are interlinked through reactions and interactions to form networks. Through these networks life is capable of making decisions about how to respond to its environment.​​ This enables life to leverage advantageous events into better outcomes and minimise the damage of disadvantageous ones.
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We aim to enrich artificial chemical systems and materials with new life-like behaviour such as decision-making. To do this we integrate novel chemical reaction networks into materials which introduce new life-like capabilities.
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We are a multidisciplinary research group. We unite a range of disciplines including Systems Chemistry, Enzymatic Chemistry, Physical Organic Chemistry, Soft Matter, Electrochemistry and Computer Modelling to construct our systems. ​
Decision Making Materials​
Our research focuses on introducing decision-making into soft materials. We will achieve this via integrating redox protein-based chemical reaction networks into the materials. The networks will process electrochemical signals and decide how the material moves in response. The new soft actuators developed here will find future applications in Soft Robotics and MedTech. This project is supported by the European Research Council Starting Grant 'eBioNetAniMat'.
Funding
We are very grateful to the following funders for supporting our work:
