Department of Biology - University of Minho - Genetically engineered protein polymers: beyond natural design

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  • | 12:00 h | videoconf link, segunda-feira, 12-04-2021

Science on the Screen is the Biology Department new Online Seminars Cycle in which invited scientists will talk about science and their research in about 30 minutes. The second season will run every two weeks, on Mondays.

 

Raúl Machado - CBMA (UMinho)

| 12:00 h | videoconf link

Resumo/Abstract

Nature offers an abundance of structural proteins with remarkable properties unmatched by known technical materials. Fibrous proteins such as collagen, silk and elastin are characterized by repeating blocks of amino acid sequences that fold and hierarchically assemble into well-defined secondary structures to provide mechanical and architectural functions. These repeating sequences have been used as building blocks for the development of recombinant protein polymers, emerging from the increase of knowledge in structure-function relationship and molecular biology. As a protein is defined by a DNA sequence, recombinant DNA technology can be used to generate replicas with high molecular precision that is, with absolute control over chain length and composition. This offers materials engineers key attributes required for the design of advanced polymeric materials. Moreover, the modularity associated with recombinant protein design allows merging multiple building blocks to build rationally designed multifunctional complex protein-based materials. This fusion concept is very powerful as it enables to combination a diversity of different functions into the same molecule. Our group have been working in the development of multifunctional protein-based materials, with increasing complexity and inspired in two of the most popular natural proteins: elastin and silk fibroin. This talk will provide highlights of this research.

 

Genetically engineered protein polymers: beyond natural design

 

Contacts

University of Minho
Department of Biology

Campus de Gualtar
4710-057 Braga

T.: (+351) 253 601 500
E.: sec_biologia@ecum.uminho.pt
+ contacts ECUM

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