Designing ECM-mimetic materials using protein engineering

Designing ECM-mimetic materials using protein engineering.

The natural extracellular matrix (ECM), with its multitude of evolved cell-instructive and cell-responsive properties, provides inspiration and guidelines for the design of engineered biomaterials. One strategy to create ECM-mimetic materials is the modular design of protein-based engineered ECM (eECM) scaffolds. This modular design strategy involves combining multiple protein domains with diff...

Polylysine modified hydrogels: brain mimetic materials for neural tissue engineering

Designing high-performance layered thermoelectric materials through orbital engineering

Thermoelectric technology, which possesses potential application in recycling industrial waste heat as energy, calls for novel high-performance materials. The systematic exploration of novel thermoelectric materials with excellent electronic transport properties is severely hindered by limited insight into the underlying bonding orbitals of atomic structures. Here we propose a simple yet succes...

Intelligent ECM mimetic injectable scaffolds based on functional collagen building blocks for tissue engineering and biomedical applications

Hydrogels comprising natural extracellular matrix (ECM) components are very attractive as scaffolds for regenerative medicine applications due to their inherent biointeractive properties. Responsive materials that adapt to their surrounding environments and regulate transport of ions and bioactive molecules manifest significant advantages for biomedical applications. Although there are many exc...

Multifunctional materials through modular protein engineering.

The diversity of potential applications for protein-engineered materials has undergone profound recent expansion through a rapid increase in the library of domains that have been utilized in these materials. Historically, protein-engineered biomaterials have been generated from a handful of peptides that were selected and exploited for their naturally evolved functionalities. In recent years, t...