Chemical reactions typically proceed in a thermodynamically preferred manner. In living systems, however, chemistry operates far from equilibrium: energy-rich molecules are continuously consumed to drive otherwise unfavorable reactions, reorganize molecular structures, and regulate complex behavior in time. These energy-consuming processes are fundamental to biology, yet reproducing similar behavior in synthetic chemical systems remains a major challenge.
A key difficulty lies in translating biological strategies into simple, abiotic chemistry. In cells, energy transduction is tightly coupled to molecular recognition, catalysis, and structural organization. Artificial systems, by contrast, often rely on isolated reactions or static molecular designs, limiting their ability to display adaptive or time-dependent behavior.
This project addresses this challenge by exploring chemically fueled non-equilibrium systems based on phosphate chemistry. Phosphates play a central role in biology as energy carriers and regulatory elements, yet their potential as programmable fuels in abiotic systems remains largely unexplored. Here, the project focuses on aminoacyl phosphate compounds, which combine chemical activation with structural features capable of directing reactivity and self-assembly in water.
Specifically, the project aims to:
(i) design phosphate-based fuels whose molecular structure encodes both reactivity and organization;
(ii) understand how fuel-driven chemistry can select between competing reaction pathways and generate transient chemical states;
(iii) demonstrate how fuel consumption can lead to information transfer, oligomer formation, and higher-order organization;
(iv) explore how chemical “waste” generated during fuel use can actively regulate system behavior rather than acting as an inert by-product.
(v) searching the sequence space for peptide materials using phosphate fuels and microfluidics
By combining chemical synthesis, reactivity and supramolecular organization, the project operates at the interface of systems chemistry, non-equilibrium thermodynamics, and materials discovery. The results are expected to advance fundamental understanding of how complex chemical behavior can emerge from simple components, and to provide new conceptual tools for designing adaptive, time-dependent chemical systems.
Ultimately, this work contributes to a broader effort to rethink chemistry as a dynamic, fuel-driven process, opening new perspectives for responsive materials, transient functionality, and the chemical origins of biological-like organization.
