For many years, I was fascinated by the assembly of peptides into supersecondary structures, for example, coiled-coil dimers and collagen mimetic triple helices. Two graduate students in my group, David Przybyla Marcos Pires, jolted me out reverie pitching some ideas higher-order these motifs mid-2000s. Our collaborative work produced peptide materials with a host different morphologies, became...

Peptide self-assembly is an increasingly attractive tool for nanomaterials. Perfected in biology peptide self-assembling systems have impacted on nearly any conceivable nanomaterial type. However, with all the information available to us commercialisation of peptide materials remains in its infancy. In an attempt to better understand the reasons behind this shortcoming we categorise peptide sel...

Understanding of new materials at the molecular level has become increasingly critical for a new generation of nanomaterials for nanotechnology, namely, the design, synthesis and fabrication of nanodevices at the molecular scale. New technology through molecular self-assembly as a fabrication tool will become tremendously important in the coming decades. Basic engineering principles for microfa...

Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) is prevalent in swine farms worldwide and is a major source of economic loss and animal suffering. Rapid genetic variation of PRRSV makes it difficult for current vaccines to confer protection against newly emerging strains. We recently demonstrated that a novel peptide nanofiber hydrogel (H9e) could act as a potent adjuvant for killed...

Our objective was to test the hypothesis that self-assembling peptide hydrogel scaffolds provide cues that enhance the chondrogenic differentiation of bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs). BMSCs were encapsulated within two unique peptide hydrogel sequences, and chondrogenesis was compared with that in agarose hydrogels. BMSCs in all three hydrogels underwent transforming growth factor-beta1-media...

Carbon nanotube polymer actuators were developed using composite nanofiber sheets fabricated by multi-walled carbon nanotubes(MWCNTs) and poly (vinylidene fluorideco-hexafluoropropylene) (PVDF-HFP). Nanofiber sheets were fabricated by electrospinning method. The effect of flow rate and polymer concentration on nanofiber formation were verified for optimum condition for fabricating nanofiber she...

background: the aim of this study was to fabricate the poly caprolactone (pcl) aligned nanofiber scaffold and to evaluate the survival, adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation of rat hair follicle stem cells (hfsc) in the graft material using electrospun pcl nanofiber scaffold for tissue engineering applications. methods: the bulge region of rat whisker was isolated and cultured in dmem: n...

A unique and programmable peptide self-assembling system has been fabricated by using poly(ethylene glycol)-attached amphiphilic oligopeptide, which shows rapid self-assembly into well-organized beta-sheet nanofibers in response to an enzymatic reaction.