Understanding the Properties of Biomolecular Motifs and Their Applications

Biological systems exemplify the utilization of highly specific recognition processes with a diverse set of building blocks for the synthesis and assembly of precisely defined nanomaterials.  Consequently, these specialized biological components are appealing for materials synthesis and have included the use of oligonucleotides, proteins, viruses, and antibodies as the primary organizational element. Researchers exploit the knowledge gained by understanding how biological materials are designed to inspire the design, fabrication and assembly of functional materials with tailored properties. Our work is aimed at understanding how to utilize the attractive characteristics of biological components to develop hybrid functional materials and devices. In addition, we will describe some our recent work on understanding biomolecular interactions with materials using both experimental and modeling tools. The fundamental understanding gained from studying the unique properties of biological processes and materials will lead to identifying strengths (as well as limitations) of biomaterials, aimed towards addressing the material needs for a variety of applications including structural materials, sensing and catalysis.