Marcus Muller1, Matthew Windsor2, William Pomerantz2, Sam Gellman2, Donald Hilvert3
1University of Göttingen,Germany, 2University of Wisconsin-Madison, 3Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich
The UW-Madison NSEC is exploring directed assembly of nanorods designed based on biomimetic principles. In collaboration with scientists in Switzerland, we have recently discovered that such assemblies can be efficient catalysts of a chemical reaction. This finding suggests a new and general strategy for mimicking the powerful catalytic activities of natural enzymes. Ultimately, such catalysts might be useful for production of valuable molecules or for chemical sensing.