Spatial Confined Chemical Reactions

Supramolecular chemistry has become an area of intense research, partly inspired by biological ensembles in nature, such as collagen and enzymes or protein assemblies in general. In nature, the collective properties and biofunctionalities of these ensembles depend not only on the individual molecular units but also (perhaps even more importantly) on the organization at the molecular or nanoscopic level . Such organization dependence can be attributed to polyvalent interactions in biological systems . "Bottom-up" approaches have been taken to mimic nature and have resulted in creative synthesis of small molecular units and large molecular motifs . These molecular building blocks contain the desired charge, polarization, or chemical functionalities that will affect intermolecular interactions such as van der Waals forces, hydrogen bonding, polar attractions, and/or hydrophobic interactions . These interactions dictate the subsequent assembly into supramolecular structures . Complementary to these synthetic approaches, we explore whether individual units such as small molecular ligands or large molecules such as proteins can be positioned with nanometer precision by using nanoengineering methodologies. The separation and local environment can be engineered to influence subsequent intermolecular interactions.