The University of Washington MRSEC supports innovative research and education that integrates modern molecular biology with state of the art chemical synthesis to construct hybrid materials exhibiting properties that cannot be achieved through either traditional biological or chemical routes. By engineering modular biomolecular components with tailored recognition, structural, and informational properties and interfacing them with specific molecular and inorganic nanoscale components the MRSEC will impart materials with photonic / electronic / catalytic / chemical functionality that can be reorganized, addressed, and reconfigured on demand in response to external stimuli. The center will develop coordinated activities in graduate and undergraduate education and outreach, establish an international network of laboratories sharing a common interest in molecular biomimetics, and partner with industry and national laboratories to translate fundamental discoveries into new products realities. The MRSEC will conduct a unique outreach program to Native Americans in the Seattle area.
The MRSEC, consisting of one Interdisciplinary Research Group - Polypeptides as genetically engineered building blocks for functional hybrid materials - will create protein-based molecular building blocks with tailored functionalities and use them for the synthesis and assembly of nanostructured hybrid materials exhibiting novel or improved properties.
Participants in the Center currently include ten senior investigators, four postdoctoral associates, and five graduate students from seven departments and two partner universities - New York University and the Istanbul Technical University. Professor Mehmet Sarikaya directs the MRSEC.
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The overarching vision of the Center has been to combine recent advances of molecular biology/genetics, engineering/nano/molecular technologies and computation/information science to create molecular biomimetics, as a new paradigm in materials science and engineering. In this unique approach, while the machinery of biology is used to carry out molecular recognition linking, and assembly, solids and synthetics are utilized as functional hybrid nanostructures for developing novel materials and devices. To accomplish its goal, the Center focused on peptides and proteins, specific sequences of amino acids, major building blocks in biology. These biopolymers make life viable, providing cellular and molecular communications, carrying out enzymatic reactions, controlling tissue generation, and performing transport and motor functions. Designed at the Center, solid-binding peptides perform in ways similar to that in biology, enabling engineering towards practical technological implementations. To reach the scientific goals, and to validate its intellectual merit, Center has integrated the tools of modern molecular biology with state-of-the-art chemical synthesis to construct hybrid materials with controlled structures and assemblies exhibiting unique functional properties that cannot be achieved through traditional biological or chemical routes alone (Figs. 1-5). One of the smallest among the MRSECs supported by NSF, GEMSEC pooled its collective knowledge and expertise, and created an institution that has enabled collaborative scientific, educational, and outreach activities nationally and world-wide. The scientific objectives have been pursued by a single Interdisciplinary Research Group integrating research areas that included developing and adapting experimental genetic selection combined with modeling approaches in designing peptides with affinity to a wide range of solids (metals, oxides, semiconductors, and minerals); quantitatively assessing bio/nano interfaces by novel pathways in understanding molecular recognition of solids; developing computational biology and bioinformatics tools for practical design of functional peptides, and fusing them with large proteins to synthesize, spatially assemble, and functionalize synthetic nano-scale entities towards systems and devices of bio-enabled, unique, and pioneering applications in technology (Figs 1-3), with extension to environment (bioremediation, Fig 4) and medicine (probing cancer and innovative remineralization routes for dental care, Fig. 5). The interdisciplinary scientific team of the Center constituted 10 investigators who have integrated their research, combined laboratories as shared experimental facilities, co-supervised students and post-doctoral researchers, and published jointly. Seed Funding program was also established to support younger scientists (six) in high-risk/high return projects, exemplified, e.g., by Professor Babak Parviz who then became the creator of Google GlassTM. The Center also expanded its reach nationally and internationally through collaborators who have often worked together via yearly workshops and symposia, supplemented with short and long-term visitations. In broader impact, GEMSEC’s far reaching education and outreach activities were leveraged with those of others on campus including, e.g., the School of Medicine Initiative for Minority Student Development (NIH) to ensure participation of diverse communities, including minority and underrepresented groups, with a Center-emphasis on Pacific Northwest Native Americans. The comprehensive education and partnership activities extended to include K-9 to High School students and their teachers (e.g., through Summer Science Camps), local community colleges, and experiential undergraduate and graduate education in addition to initiating new courses (Fig. 6). These, and administrative, activities, have primarily been supported by the university matching funds demonstrating the interest of the parent institution in the Center. GEMSEC has also established Shared Experimental Facilities in six focused, and unique, areas (molecular biomimetics, solution biomimetics, hybrid molecular synthesis, molecular characterization, microfabrication/measurements, and computational biomimetics) with central labs and combined them with the Core investigators’ labs that have been open for use at the university, WA and other states, and other MRSECs carrying research at biology/materials science interface. GEMSEC activities are monitored by an external Scientific Advisory Board that reviewed progress of research and broader impact activities on a yearly basis and have made recommendations to the Executive Board. Center also had yearly workshops and partnered with local and national industry. In summary, by combining the tools of biology and physical sciences at the molecular scale, Center has established the fundamental scientific bases of a burgeoning new field of molecular biomimetics, in which solid-binding peptides were engineered as the building blocks and were utilized as practical molecular components in applications of advanced materials and devices in nanotechnology and nanomedicine. The Center’s accomplishments are evidenced by more than 120 archival publications, hundreds of invited presentations, numerous awards, and five patents, with wide range partnership and outreach activities for educating highly multidisciplinary next generation of scientists and engineers towards enhancing technological competitiveness of the nation in a broader world. This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
