Research Director: Dr. Eiji Yashima
(Professor, Department of Molecular Design and Engineering, Nagoya University)
Research Term: 2002-2007

The Super-structured Helix project is aiming to create many new helical polymers and oligomers with potential functionality involving molecular recognition (discrimination), catalytic activity (catalyst), and self-replication or information storage with implications for biological helicity, superstructures, and their sophisticated functions. The artificial single-handed double helices consisting of complementary strands have been synthesized, which provide an important step toward breaking a monopoly of nature and will lead to a fully artificial self-replication system. The direct observations of helical structures in artificial helical polymers by scanning probe microscopy, an important and urgent objective in this project, have also been attained.