Engineering Nanoscale Protein Scaffolds with Modular Functionalities

Proteins are the most versatile among the various biological building blocks and efforts in protein engineering have resulted in many industrial and biomedical applications. However, the strength of proteins - their versatility and specific interactions - also complicates and hinders their systematic design and engineering. One potential approach is to exploit the modular nature of different protein domains in order to design synthetic protein scaffolds that can perform completely new biological functions. In this talk, I will outline several successful examples in connecting exchangeable protein domains for predicative engineering applications in (1) bioenergy applications, (2) Fuel cell applications, and (3) biosensing.