Abstract

nanoBRICKs – synthetic smart nanomaterials from nano to macro

Nanotechnology designs materials with advanced properties based on the control of structure at the nanoscale. Biological systems provide an attractive opportunity to design and easily manufacture material with programmable properties. DNA origami demonstrated the power of this technology by creating a variety of assemblies that can be easily encoded in the nucleotide sequence. However, for biological nanodevices nature favors polypeptides over nucleic acids due to stability and versatility of amino-acid side chains. With few exceptions protein and peptide assemblies have been considered too difficult for the bottom-up design due to complex interactions and manufacturing problems specific for each case. We present technology for manufacturing nanomaterials based on combinations of modular peptide elements and protein domains, which allow self-assembly into complex tertiary structures with designed macroscopic properties. We will demonstrate the feasibility and potentials of protein nanotechnology by design, streamlining the production and technological application of nanomaterials based on nanoBRICKs.

News

Our standard has been approved!

Description of the improved BioBrick Standard has been added. For more info see: BioBricks & Standard

Wisdom of the day

A daily piece of semi-random wisdom (respectfully taken from http://www.phdcomics.com/):

Preliminary project description

Self-assembly is one of the important properties of biological systems. Application of this principle along with the ability to genetically encode the modular building blocks could revolutionize manufacturing, particularly since the self-assembled structures in nature span from the nano- to the macroscopic scale.

We plan to investigate the feasibility and potentials of BioBricks principle to prepare structural elements that will self-assemble into the defined structures that could be used for different applications, from materials sciences to health.