This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
The research objective of this Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award is to develop a new kind of colloidal science that will result in materials with structural hierarchy and biological functions. For nearly five thousand years, spontaneous self-assembly of small molecules in water has been known to be involved with amphiphilic molecules, which are part oily and part water-soluble. This project will demonstrate the self-assembly of entirely water-soluble molecules, and will use these assemblies as templates to support gel formation of polymers coated on the assemblies. This approach, templated synthesis, will result in a new class of structures, including bicontinuous hydrogels, connected hydroshells, microcapsules and nano-molecular rods. Because the synthesis does not involve amphiphilic or surfactant molecules that can denature proteins, proteins will be copolymerized into the gel materials with preferred spatial location and with retained enzymatic activities. These structures can function as supported biocatalysts, having the potential to simulate living tissues. The new science in the research will be integrated with education at multiple levels, including high school seniors, high school teachers, undergraduates (about 7% of the funding for this award will be used for hiring undergraduate researchers), graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.
The knowledge derived from this research will advance making small-molecule drugs and modifying protein drugs developed in pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries. The hydrogel materials can be coated onto a wide range of materials, including those used in medical instruments, to reduce biofouling and occurrence of infection in patients. The new hydrogels also have the potential to function as biodegradable implants for tissue regeneration. As this project elucidates new fundamental principles of self-assembly, the research has the potential to change the landscape of colloidal and interfacial sciences. Integrating with education, laboratory manuals and web pages will be generated.
