Talk as part of a colloquium in Polymer chemistry and technology.

Summary: Living systems sense, move and adapt because molecular architecture encodes function. I will show how polymers can do the same. Block copolymer design (block ratio, molecular weight, chain flexibility) controls the self-assembly, shape and membrane mechanics of vesicles, and turns passive polymersomes into active soft nanomaterials: from stomatocyte nanomotors to conformational phoresis, a catalyst-free directed migration driven by polymer chain dynamics. I will also present adaptive PEG interfaces for one-step functionalisation of nanocarriers, and outline how these principles will be developed at AMI, linking polymer synthesis to health and food technology together with academic and industrial partners