Before revision: A distinguishing feature of living matter is its ability to control force-generating structures that accomplish tasks such as chromosome segregation, intracellular transport, and cell movement. To generate and manipulate these micron-scale structures and force fields , cells create spatiotemporal patterns of molecular-scale activity ] ]  ] . Here, we control micron-scale structures and fluid flow by manipulating molecular-scale protein activity set by dynamic optical boundaries in an engineered system of purified proteins .
After revision: A distinguishing feature of living matter is its ability to control force-generating , "active" molecules that create and manipulate non-equilibrium structures and force fields , cells create spatiotemporal patterns of molecular-scale activity ] ] ] . Here, we control micron-scale structures and fluid flow by manipulating molecular-scale protein activity set by dynamic optical boundaries in an engineered system of purified proteins .