Interfaces Working for Biology: Solving Biological Mysteries and Opening Up Future Nanoarchitectonics

Water molecules are a major component of biosystems. However, biosystems are neither simple aqueous solutions nor homogeneous materials. Instead, biosystems can be regarded as integrated and hierarchical assemblies of interfacial structures. From this viewpoint, in this short review, various interface-specific properties and phenomena are briefly described in relation to biologically important events. Interfacial anomalies are important keys to understand molecular recognition in aqueous media and to propose possible scenarios for the origin of cell membranes. Interfacial environments lead to novel modes of biomolecular recognition as well as interfacial nanofabrications that are useful for cell differentiation controls and biomimetic computing devices. The latter of which are also related to an advanced nanotechnology concept: nanoarchitectonics.