Through the magic
of “active matter”—matter
that converts chemical energy into mechanical work to drive emergent
properties—biology solves a myriad of seemingly enormous physical
challenges. Using active matter surfaces, for example, our lungs clear
an astronomically large number of particulate contaminants that accompany
each of the 10,000 L of air we respire per day, thus ensuring that
the lungs’ gas exchange surfaces remain functional. In this
Perspective, we describe our efforts to engineer artificial active
surfaces that mimic active matter surfaces in biology. Specifically,
we seek to assemble the basic active matter components—mechanical
motor, driven constituent, and energy source—to design surfaces
that support the continuous operation of molecular sensing, recognition,
and exchange. The successful realization of this technology would
generate multifunctional, “living” surfaces that combine
the dynamic programmability of active matter and the molecular specificity
of biological surfaces and apply them to applications in biosensors,
chemical diagnostics, and other surface transport and catalytic processes.
We describe our recent efforts in bio-enabled engineering of living
surfaces through the design of molecular probes to understand and
integrate native biological membranes into synthetic materials.