Scientists develop first artificial molecular pump

EVANSTON, Ill., May 19 (UPI) -- Scientists have figured out how to mimic nature by creating an artificial molecular pump that can power cells in a feat of "radical chemistry," as one scientist involved with the development called it.

The design of the tiny device is significant because scientists managed to figure out how to transfer energy from molecule to molecule the same way that it happens naturally -- no small feat.

"All living organisms, including humans, must continuously transport and redistribute molecules around their cells, using vital carrier proteins," said Sir Fraser Stoddart, the Board of Trustees Professor of Chemistry in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, in a press release. "We are trying to recreate the actions of these proteins using relatively simple small molecules we make in the laboratory."

The pump uses energy from chemical reactions to move smaller molecules around in order to metabolize and store energy from food.

As researchers managed to siphon energy from molecules while forcing them to act in ways they may not normally, the next goal will be to increase how much energy is siphoned and stored, closer to the real thing.

"This is completely unlike the process of designing the machinery we are used to seeing in everyday life," Stoddart said. "In a way, one must learn to see things from the molecules' point of view, considering forces such as random thermal motion that one would never consider when building an agricultural water pump or any other mechanical device."

The study is published in Nature Nanotechnology.