BACKGROUND AND AIM Living systems operate at a thermodynamic state that is out of equilibrium. This endows living organisms with the fascinating ability to autonomously grow, adapt, learn, replicate, signal, respond and heal. This dynamic, dissipative state is very different from the thermodynamic equilibrium regime relevant to most processes in today’s materials chemistry. Within this research effort we take up the challenge to create and study functional systems that operate in the thermodynamic regime of
The programme The aim of this research programme is to create supramolecular systems and materials that feature the three fundamental principles of life and that are able to autonomously operate out of equilibrium. The programme is organized around three projects ( P1 , P2 and P3 ) that focus on self-assembly, self-sustainability and self-replication, respectively, and one project that is aimed at making the step to out-of-equilibrium materials and devices ( P4 ), see the schematics.
The Consortium This unique program brings together expertise from chemistry, biochemistry, physics, biophysics and materials science, combining experiment and theory, represented by a complementary team of principle investigators, PhD students and postdocs. The researchers are from four different institutes: