IRG 1: Peptide Active Materials (PAMs)

Motivation and Impact

Harnessing the immense polyaminoacid complexity of nature and beyond without billions of years of evolution

Nature Inspired Materials

MOTIVATION:
Life is possible due to proteins: polyaminoacid macromolecules with exquisite folded nanostructure producing specific function that is encoded in the amino acid sequence.

KEY CHALLENGE:
Restricted toolbox of natural or mutated protein structures limits design of non-natural materials.

VISION:
Computational design to realize synthetic peptides that fold and assemble into rigid, protein-like building blocks to produce designed Nanostructure (Aim 1), Motion (Aim 2), and Simple Machines (Aim 3).