(358d) Designing Peptide Biomaterials Using Experiments and Modeling

Designing practical biomaterials involves many competing design constraints. There is a need for stability, biodegradability, nonspecific protein resistance, and easy functionalization. There are few biomaterials today which excel at all these aspects. Peptide based materials are an attractive choice for biomaterials because of their near limitless chemical diversity and relative ease of synthesis. In this work, we describe new peptide based biomaterials designed with all these criteria in mind. We've used a novel combination of rational design, biomimetics through bioinformatics, and experiments to design these new biomaterials. Atomistic modeling was used to guide the design of self-assembling peptides. Bioinformatics was used to add a resistance to nonspecific adsorption of bio-macromolecules. Finally, a series of surface characterization techniques were used to complement the modeling predictions. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and cell adhesion studies show that the materials resist nonspecific protein adsorption and are easy to functionalize. The new materials meet our design criteria, but the key innovation of this research is how complimentary techniques in experiments and simulations can guide the design of new biomaterials.