Fundamental research with life-size effects

‘I love that I can do truly fundamental research while still contributing to solving major societal problems,’ says Nathalie Katsonis, Professor of Chemistry. She develops adaptive molecular materials and studies the chemical origins of life, which in turn yield insights for vaccines and clearing up oil spills at sea. Today, it was announced that Katsonis will receive the Ammodo Science Award for Fundamental Research. 

FSE Science Newsroom | Text Charlotte Vlek | Images Leoni von Ristok

 Imagine a man-made material that pops open when light shines on it, like the seedpod of an orchid. Or a material that winds or unwinds like the tendrils of a climbing cucumber plant, or one that follows the sun, just like a sunflower. These kinds of active materials are what Katsonis is developing in her lab. ‘We need to radically change how we think about materials,’ she states. ‘The green materials of the future will have to be able to change and adapt to their environment, instead of fighting against it. These materials will also be recyclable, so we stop throwing away old materials as soon as we have invented something new.’

Katsonis develops adaptive materials by incorporating artificial molecular machines into larger molecular ensembles. Molecular machines are man-made molecules that display sophisticated movement or exert a force in response to external stimuli, such as light. Building on her extensive expertise in the field, she previously worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Ben Feringa, who was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize for his pioneering work on artificial molecular machines, including the nanocar: a molecular machine powered by four molecular motors as wheels.

From nano to macro

‘When a molecular machine operates and moves, the movement occurs at the nanoscale,’ Katsonis explains. ‘I integrate molecular machines into larger ensembles, and eventually into materials, that can move and change their shape at larger scales. The challenge is to have all these machines move in sync: at the same moment and all in the same direction.’ To make this happen, Katsonis designs the material to have an inherent ‘twist’ in it. She uses a property of molecules called chirality—where a molecule and its mirror image, like left and right hands, cannot be superimposed. In nature, living systems often prefer one mirror image over the other, and that tiny choice can scale up, creating preferred directions in the way materials are organized.

As in nature, by using only one ‘handedness’, Katsonis was able to create a material that tends to twist in a certain direction once the molecular motors come into action, instead of dispersing their actions chaotically and in all directions. By combining engineering principles from plants—such as molecular organization—with those from animals, like the bio-molecular machines found in muscles, Katsonis has developed unprecedented active materials.

Inspiration from nature

Katsonis often draws inspiration from nature, because biological materials are simultaneously functional, adaptive, and renewable. Just look at the leaves of a tree, which can convert sunlight into nutrients, but can also turn into compost. ‘All that lives, moves,’ Katsonis states, and she does not mean that trees are secretly able to move to a different spot in the forest overnight. Rather, all of life continuously grows or changes shape. And with it comes an inherent ability to adapt. As Leonardo da Vinci once wrote: ’Motion is the cause of all life’.

The practical applications of the origins of life

Katsonis’ most recent research dives into the molecular origins of life. Researchers across the world agree that life must have started with a string of genetic information (short strands of RNA) encapsulated in a little compartment to form a primitive cell. ‘RNA is the ultimate molecular machine,’ says Katsonis: ‘A molecule that codes information, that can copy itself, and that can make other reactions take place faster.’ The outer shell of this primitive cell probably consisted of a bilayer of fatty acids, much like our current cells are also contained in a shell of lipids. Curiously, these primitive cells much resemble mRNA vaccines, the discovery of which earned a Nobel Prize in 2023. ‘It’s such a mind-triggering coincidence, I think, that the hope for the future of medicine resembles the very first moments of the origins of life.’

‘These first primitive cells, called protocells, must have had a way to move towards light or nutrients to survive,’ Katsonis ponders. Understanding how this might have worked can be useful for these mRNA-based technologies. Katsonis studies the behaviour of protocells in her lab and discovered that the lipids in the encapsulation may have formed as an effect of the sun irradiating a layer of oil on water. This, by the way, is also useful knowledge to understand what happens to oil spills at sea, and to help clean them up. ‘But I did not think about applications when I started studying this,’ Katsonis adds. ‘I was just interested in the origins of life.’

But how about the movement of protocells? ‘We think it may have had something to do with oil and water as well,’ Katsonis explains. ‘In Trinidad and Tobago, there is a lake that consists entirely of oil. Tiny water droplets can move through the oil lake and this water was encapsulated a long time ago. Isn’t that fascinating? Anyway, we don’t know yet exactly how an early life form may have moved. But I have some clues.’

More information about Katsonis’ research from Ammodo and Katsonis’ research group.