BMNL Lab

Our research unfolds along two interconnected frontiers that reflect both scientific rigor and philosophical ambition. Together, they guide our journey toward building complex materials informed by the principles of life. We investigate how amino acid sequences and geometrical symmetry can encode functional properties into nanoscale structures. Our goal is to create materials that exhibit chirality, emergent behavior, and topological response by design. We aim to emulate and extend nature’s redox strategies, enabling new electrochemical reactions for sustainable catalysis and molecular synthesis. Inspired by the precision of biological systems, we engineer electron flow, proton coupling, and dynamic interfaces for high-performance materials. Our lab was the first to demonstrate the sequence-controlled synthesis of chiral gold nanoparticles using amino acids and peptides, establishing a programmable route to plasmonic chirality in inorganic systems. We pioneered a redox-neutral reaction pathway for CO₂ conversion, enabling the direct synthesis of carbon-based materials from CO₂ without external reductants or oxidants—a globally unprecedented strategy. By mimicking the Mn–Ca cluster in natural photosystem II, we developed state-of-the-art Mn nanoparticle catalysts for water oxidation. This technology has led to the successful industrialization of chlorine-evolving oxidation catalysts with commercial performance. We developed the first biomodal neuromorphic device that operates using both electrons and protons, based on 2D peptide assemblies incorporating redox-active tyrosine residues—mimicking photosynthetic charge transport in nature. We explore how molecular symmetry, biological sequences, and interfacial interactions give rise to materials that adapt, communicate, and