Electrostatic Control of Protein-Surface Interactions.

摘要

The long-term vision of this research is to develop, characterize, and exploit surface chemistries that create stable protein-surface interactions by mimicking biological interfaces. We are pursuing this goal by chemically functionalizing well-defined and well-characterized surfaces with structured peptides. These peptides, which can be synthesized with any residual functional group, generate an electrostatic surface that will interact with proteins introduced from solution with chemically- and structurally-encoded specificity. In the current grant period, we have focused on expanding the kinds of surface reaction chemistries and secondary peptide structures under investigation and exploring possible heterogeneity on our chemically functionalized surfaces using high-resolution microscopy techniques. We are pursing a collaboration with Dr. Ron Elber investigating molecular dynamics simulations of surface- bound peptides. These developments demonstrate the impact our work will continue to make on the field of biological materials science.