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Smart Mechanics and Biological Selectivity in Engineered Protein Hydrogels

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Thursday, October 30, 2014
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Bradley Olsen

This talk will discuss three engineering design concepts in protein hydrogels that can be exploited to improve their mechanical performance: hierarchical structuring, topological entanglement, and chain folding/aggregation. Using these strategies, we demonstrate the ability to produce stiff, tough, adhesive, and extensible gels, and also to modulate all of these advanced mechanical properties in response to stimuli such as temperature or mild oxidation. Theories of polymer physics can be applied to explain the structural and molecular origins of the mechanical response, and the promise of many of the materials is demonstrated for cell culture and tissue toughening. Finally, we show that the incorporation of biofunctional protein sequences into such artificial gels can recapture the biological specificity and interactions of the nuclear pore gel.