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).

Saven, C. Kloxin, Pochan, and coworkers, “Polymers with controlled assembly and rigidity made with click-functional peptide bundles,” Nature 574 (2019): 658-662
Saven, C. Kloxin, Pochan, and coworkers, “Polymers with controlled assembly and rigidity made with click-functional peptide bundles,” Nature 574 (2019): 658-662