This talk will focus on the invention of organic materials and their integration into systems that automatically respond to changes in their state without human intervention. An example is the development of a polymeric composite that can repair itself following damage in the form of cracks. Progress to date has achieved up to 90% recovery of a damaged material’s original mechanical properties. Beyond self-healing, the ability to respond to a diverse set of chemical and physical stimuli will depend on sophisticated fluidic systems that can make logical decisions and respond by delivering the necessary chemical components to achieve the desired response. The first part of the talk will thus focus on materials development intended to provide a platform for microfluidics fabrication in which organic components – rather than electronic components – provide sensing and actuation function. Three examples will be presented: stimuli responsive hydrogels, lipid coated hydrogels, and patterned surfaces. An important lesson from these studies is that materials use at the microscale must take advantage of the unique properties at that scale.