The counterpart to nanorobotics is molecular robotics, where instead of building a robotic structure out of metallic components, one uses synthetic phospholipids and other gradient-forming hydrophobic materials.

Scientists at Tohoku University have successfully created self-forming structures scalable to even macro sizes for use in general robotics.

#Robotics #Science #Molecules #Phospholipids #Lipids #Biology #Biochemistry #Biotechnology #Bioengineering #Scicomm

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.langmuir.2c02859

On Earth, EVERY single cell has lipids that protects the inside of the cell. So they are universal biomarkers as we know them. Pablo cares about the tails of the #phospholipids: the #hydrocarbons / #alkanes.

Some of these have been found on Mars!

Lipids are geostable and biomarkers.

#Interferon-inducible #phospholipids govern #IFITM3-dependent #endosomal #antiviral immunity

#Phosphatidylinositol(3,4,5)-trisphosphate enhances inhibition of #endocytic viral entry via binding to the intracellular loop of interferon-induced transmembrane protein 3

Anna Kajaste-Rudnitski, Giulia Unali et al

https://www.embopress.org/doi/10.15252/embj.2022112234