(233b) Invited: Creating Therapeutic Nanomaterials From Proteins

Protein drugs can provide a key advantage over small molecule drugs; they evolved to perform their function, while small molecules are often selected for “best” function compared to a pool of candidates. However, proteins can present challenges in delivery that must be overcome in order to be used as therapeutic drugs. Though their folded structure and specific sequence are critical to their biological function and makes them sensitive and difficult to package, but also provides an opportunity to create materials from proteins that is not possible for small molecules. The main goal of this work is to engineer nanomaterials made from therapeutic proteins, and control the interactions between these materials and cells for applications in cancer, inflammation and vaccines. Similar to polymeric materials, we use self-assembly and covalent chemistry approaches to build nanomaterials from proteins. However, we take advantage of proteins' unique properties of bioactivity, tertiary structure, affinity interactions, and defined and controllable sequence. By controlling the amino acid sequence and nanomaterial fabrication conditions, we engineer materials that protect and deliver proteins, and control their presentation to cells. I will show some of the materials we have made from biologically active proteins and discuss our progress in using these as therapies.