What is Self-Assembly?
Self-assembly is a process where separate components spontaneously assemble and organize into ordered structures without external guidance. This phenomenon can be observed across various scales, from molecular to macroscopic levels, and is driven by specific, local interactions among the components themselves, such as electromagnetic forces, ionic and hydrophobic interactions, hydrogen bonding, and Van der Waals forces. Self-assembly plays a critical role in numerous natural processes, including the formation of cellular membranes, crystallization, and the biosynthesis and folding of biological macromolecules like proteins and DNA. It also has significant applications in nanotechnology, materials science, and biotechnology, enabling the creation of complex structures with precise functionalities from simple building blocks.
Magnetic Self Assembly
The magnetic self-assembly kit is a simple way to demonstrate self-assembly to life science and physical science students. It demonstrates that if we equip elements (in this case foam disks) with attractive and repulsive forces, separate disks can associate and repulse each other concurrently to form specific conformations as illustrated in figure 1(a-d) below.
Magnet are installed on the yellow sides of the disks with same absolute polarity. Consequently, disks of the same color repulse each other and disks of different colors attract each other. Flipping the disks from one side (one color) to another changes the attraction and repulsion pattern of the flipped disk with observable effect on the surrounding disk network at short and long range.
Please refer to the Teacher Guide for detailed experimental procedures and suggested assessment exercises.
Chemical Self-Assembly
The chemical self-assembly kit is also a simple way to demonstrate self-assembly to life science and physical science students. In this case, unlike the magnetic self-assembly where parts are moving before their eyes, the final result of the self-assembly phenomenon is observed. Students must use a molecular model of the self-assembly in order to make sense of the observations.
Please refer to the Teacher Guide for detailed experimental procedures and suggested assessment exercises.
Chemical Self Assembly – Medical Application
The priorly described magnetic and chemical self-assembly labs and associated lessons prepare students for more sophisticated self-assembly phenomena such as the self-assembly mechanisms that occur during the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine production.
Please refer to the Teacher Guide for more detailed explanation of self-assembly, as well as the analogy between the sodium and calcium chloride spherification and the self-assembly of mRNA containing nanoliposome.
Source: Y. Theriault (2023). To see the video, click HERE
