Integrating Theory, Computational and Experiment to Robustly Design Complex Protein-based Nanomaterials
This project will develop robust methods for the design of complex protein-based nanomaterials. The research project will integrate theory, computation, and experiment to describe the possible space of symmetric protein assemblies and develop methods for the rapid and reliable production of novel materials. An atlas of theoretical symmetric architectures will be delineated and integrated with cutting-edge protein structure modeling software to identify novel amino acid sequences predicted to self-assemble into precisely defined structures. The corresponding proteins will be produced experimentally and their structures determined at high resolution to provide feedback for the improvement of both the theoretical and computational aspects of the program. In this way, a general approach for patterning complex protein-based materials with sub-nanometer resolution will be developed that is expected to have a profound impact on the fields of molecular self-assembly and nanomaterials. Long-term outcomes of this basic research could include the development of new types of medicines, materials with unprecedented properties, and other useful chemical technologies.