Interfaces in protein and cellulose nanocomposites
Project Description: To use chemical modifications on the surface of nancellulose to probe the effect of the interface on overall elasticity of protein/cellulose nanocomposites as a function of nancellulose volume fraction by characterizing the interphase zone formed in the vicinity of the nancellulose using computational and experimental approaches
Recombinant protein hydrogels and adhesives
Project Description: Our focus is the design of protein-based block copolymers using Spidroin-Amyloid-Mussel foot (SAM) protein to generate recombinant protein-based hydrogels with properties suitable for surgical adhesive repair in various applications. We anticipate elucidating the sequence-structure-property relationships that determine SAM protein performance.
This project is supported by an EMSL Exploratory project “Characterization of Novel Synthetic Biological Materials.” Check out the Bond Over Science Podcast.
Nanostructural characterization of recombinant protein fibers
Project Description: Use dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) enhanced solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) on 13C labeled Spidroin-Amyloid-Mussel foot (SAM) protein after fiber spinning and drawing to detect long-range and through-space correlations between amino acids. Combined with molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, this project will determine the secondary structure in SAM protein-based fibers and elucidate relationships among SAM protein sequence, fiber ultrastructure and morphology, and fiber strength and modulus.
This project is supported by National MagLab “Determining secondary structure in protein-based block copolymer fibers by carbon-carbon correlation solid-state NMR spectroscopy”
Additive manufacturing of recombinant proteins
Project Description: The team will study the feasibility of fabricating self-adhering 3D printable recombinant protein-based biomaterial using stereolithography 3D printing, investigating methods to generate and print bioinks, bioink sequence-processing-property relationships, and dimensional limits of fabricating these devices.
Additive manufacturing of cellulose reinforced nanocomposites
Project Description: The team will study the feasibility of 3D printing poly (lactic acid) (PLA) with nanocellulose composite to improve mechanical properties when drugs are impregnated into the PLA matrix.
Economic and environmental impact of recombinant protein biomanufacturing
Project Description: The objective of this project is to conduct an economic feasibility and environmental impact study of the production of recombinant protein fiber. The study will focus on identifying key factors affecting production costs, analyzing the market demand for recombinant protein fiber, and assessing the environmental impact of the production process. Supply chain analysis will identify economic locations for deployment of a silk fiber production facility.
Accelerated discovery of recombinant protein-based materials
Project Description: The goal of this project is to Map mussel foot protein (Mfp) sequence space to predict (1) protein expression level, (2) purified protein yield, and (3) C-half/N-half adhesion by creating a library of new proteins containing mutation in Mfp N-half sequence.
Developing machine learning model that map structure-function-sequence relations in recombinant protein materials
Project Description: Develop a method to map raw amino acid sequences to a continuous latent space for optimization such that similarity between sequences is captured by distances in the learned latent space. These distances will then be compared/contrasted to the material properties observed from proteins expressed from these sequences.