The Department of Materials and Interfaces of the Weizmann Institute of Science distinguishes itself from many other materials departments in its bottom-up approach. The common theme among most of the scientists here is the desire to build materials from the most elementary units, i.e. the atom, molecule or groups of these, and thereby endow them a certain pre-designed functionality. Alternatively, people here are trying to develop understanding of the functionality of various materials, based on the assemblage of molecules or supramolecular architectures of a group of molecules. This permits the development of new high performance materials for numerous applications, and contrasts with the more traditional way of improving materials by materials engineering approaches. Some recent achievements of department scientists were investigations of the limit to miniaturization of electronic devices verified by fabrication of one of the smallest bipolar transistors reported thus far (ca. 50nm); the study of transmembrane transfer of very large biomolecules such as DNA; the discovery of a surface superconducting state in Na-doped WO3 with indications for Tc at 91K; Design of new Q-dots by electro-sonochemistry for opto-electronics and for solar cells; modification of electrodes by self-assembly of ordered metal organo-metallic multilayers; nano-lithography of modified self-assembled organic monolayers; synthesis of new organic/inorganic supramolecular architectures, that reveal unexpected optical and electronic properties; research into the phase diagram of micro-emulsions; identification of novel structures and phases in complex fluids and monitoring the nucleation and crystal formation of cholesterol from inception. Different directions include nanotribological studies that reveal that polymer brushes can enormously reduce friction between rubbing surfaces and that single liquids can abruptly solidify when confined; nano-mechanics of carbon nanotubes and synthesis of inorganic nested fullurenes that display improved lubricating properties, as well as nano-tubes from magnetic materials.