With this award, the Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry Program of the Division of Chemistry is funding Professor David Lynn of Emory University to re-construct and extend the functions achieved with biopolymers in living systems. The design of synthetic nanomaterials continues to benefit from structural investigations of the biological molecules that perform the chemical, electrical, and mechanical functions associated with cellular metabolism, communication and energy capture and utilization. These functions have emerged from the co-assembly of distinct biopolymer scaffolds in ways that exploit the unique properties of each partner. The systems under investigation serve as a guide for the first few steps in understanding a co-assembly code that can lead to new functional materials. This funding will expand the structural, analytic and modeling methods available for new functional materials and create the insight necessary to provide a foundation for the discovery of functional co-assembling materials.
While biopolymers continue to expand in their structural and functional uses in our society, control of the electrostatic surface patterning of materials have remained beyond our reach. The specific pattern of the cross-beta peptide assemblies can now be extended into simple materials that self-assemble with unprecedented atomic-level resolution of charged surfaces in a wide range of formats. Sequence specific polymers are necessary, but generally require complex co-assemblies to generate compatible surfaces with existing biological surfaces and cells. Recently developed methods to define homogeneous peptide assemblies with atomic resolution, to measure and define charge patterning, are positioned to prepare blends and more elaborate co-assemblies of synthetic biopolymers into supramolecular functional materials with structurally well-defined charged surfaces. This bottom-up design of complex nanomaterials capable of extending the functionality of biological systems is part of a new approach in materials research and one with potential long-term applications ranging from therapeutics to environmental monitoring.
