Concept
GOLEM is the acronym of a European research initiative to understand and investigate the use of bio-inspired bonds to self-assemble small components.
While our knowledge on synthesizing nanostructures at the molecular level is progressing at a fast pace since the remarkable achievement of buckyballs and carbon nanotubes, our current understanding on how to interface and assemble parts from different materials is still limited.
The GOLEM concept is to use an approach based on bio-inspired events to assemble parts at the micro- /nano- scale. The objective is to mimic methods used by nature to interface organic and non-organic material and also molecular recognition properties like antibodies/antigens, proteins receptors/ligands interaction or DNA hybridization to uniquely define mating pairs between nano-objects to assemble.
About
The GOLEM project is supported by the Nanotechnology program (NMP) of the European Commission under the sixth framework program (FP6). It involves eleven partners accross Europe and is coordinated by Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. More details about the team are to be found in the project team section of this website.