Cells use membrane proteins as gatekeepers to transport ions and molecules, catalyze reactions, relay signals, and interact with other cells. DNA nanostructures with lipidic anchors are promising as membrane protein mimics because of their high tuneability. However, the design features specifying DNA nanostructure's functions in lipid membranes are yet to be fully understood. Here, we show that altering patterns of cholesterol units on a cubic DNA scaffold dramatically changes its interaction mode with lipid membranes. This results in simple design rules that allow a single DNA nanostructure to reproduce multiple membrane protein functions: peripheral anchoring, nanopore behavior and conformational switching to reveal membrane-binding units. Strikingly, the DNA-cholesterol cubes constitute the first open-walled DNA nanopores, as only a quarter of their wall is made of DNA. This functional diversity can increase our fundamental understanding of membrane phenomena, and results in sensing, drug delivery and cell manipulation tools. ASSOCIATED CONTENT Supporting Information. This material is available free of charge via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org. DNA cage design and assembly, lipid vesicle preparation, membrane-binding study, dye-influx assay and molecular dynamic simulations.

While virtual reality (VR) is emerging as an interactive tool for chemical education, its application and assessment for chemical education are still limited. Thus, an educational VR activity based on interactive molecular dynamics in virtual reality (iMD-VR), which allows for realtime, immersive interactions with a dynamic molecular world, was now designed and executed to demonstrate chemical concepts and engage students in exploring molecular structures, motions, and interactions. There were 70 students in the first semester of an introductory organic chemistry course asked to complete an example task to pull a methane molecule through a carbon nanotube with iMD-VR software originally designed for research purposes by Glowacki and coworkers. Our assessments of this activity have shown valuable motivational impacts and measurable learning gains. The VR activity can be further tailored to many different levels by varying the topics and tasks, with affordable hardware and software.

Pain is both a major clinical and economic problem, affecting more people than diabetes, heart disease, and cancer combined. While a variety of prescribed or over-the-counter (OTC) medications are available for pain management, opioid medications, especially those acting on the μ-opioid receptor (μOR) and related pathways, have proven to be the most effective, despite some serious side effects including respiration depression, pruritus, dependence, and constipation. It is therefore imperative that both academia and industry develop novel μOR analgesics which retain their opioid analgesic properties but with fewer or no adverse effects. In this review we outline recent progress towards the discovery of safer opioid analgesics.

We report an original catalytic molecular tetrahedron. By threading through the cavity of the tetrahedron, polymeric substrates are unfolded or broken apart. Our catalyst distinguishes between polymer chains of different lengths, functionalizing the shorter polymers selectively over the longer ones-as a proof of concept for selective catalysis to modify polymers. Our findings advance the fundamental understanding of the thermodynamic and kinetic phenomena controlling the interactions between molecular cages and synthetic polymers, offering valuable ability to create complex materials in the future.

Selective monofunctionalization of substrates with distant, yet equally reactive functional groups is difficult to achieve, as it requires the second functional group to selectively modulate its reactivity once the first functional group has reacted. We now show that mechanically interlocked catalytic rings can effectively regulate the reactivity of stoppering groups in rotaxanes over a distance of about 2 nm. Our mechanism of communication is enabled by a unique interlocked design, which effectively removes the catalytic rings from the substrates by fast dethreading as soon as the first reaction has taken place. Our method not only led to a rare example of selective monofunctionalization, but also to a “molecular if function”. Overall, the study presents a way to get distant functional groups to communicate with each other in a reaction‐history‐dependent manner by creating linkers that can ultimately perform logical operations at the molecular level.