Others, such as myosin, are responsible for muscle contraction. Some, such as kinesins, are responsible for the transport of cargoes of substances in the cell.

Eukaryotic cells possess motor proteins that literally walk on the filaments of the cytoskeleton, the cellular skeleton. In 1973, it was discovered that the flagella that drive the movement of many micro-organisms are propelled by a rotary motor. The science that is currently developing nanomachines powered by nanomotors is based on the discovery of such systems in nature. Here are some of the key milestones in the science of nanomachines. According to the Nobel Foundation, today “the molecular motor is at the same stage as the electric motor was in the 1830s.” But it promises immense applications, from biomedicine and smart materials to energy and the environment. In 2016, Sauvage and two other researchers were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for the design and synthesis of molecular machines”, which are “the world’s smallest machines”, as the press release summarises. The development of nanomachines is a growing field.

The concept is inspired by nature: muscle fibres or the flagella and cilia of bacteria are molecular motors with moving parts that work when supplied with energy. Catenanes were the first step towards the construction of nanomachines. In 1983, the French chemist Jean-Pierre Sauvage and his collaborators constructed the first catenane : two interlocking rings, but with the peculiarity that the rings are two molecules linked not by chemical bonds, but by their physical structure, like links in a chain.

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