International Research Fellow Award: Programmed Structural Order in Functional Dendrimer Protein Mimics

[0076184]卡斯特拉诺国际研究员奖励计划使美国科学家和工程师能够在国外进行三到二十四个月的研究。该计划的奖励为联合研究提供了机会，并利用独特或互补的设施、专业知识和国外的实验条件。该奖项将为Ronald K. Castellano博士提供为期24个月的支持，让他与瑞士苏黎世联邦理工学院（ETH）的Francois Diederich博士一起工作。该项目由美国国家科学基金会数学和物理科学理事会多学科活动办公室共同资助。本项目涉及功能性树突蛋白模拟物的程序化结构顺序的研究。树状大分子是对称分支的分子。在生物系统中，二级和三级蛋白质结构通过暴露功能和提供底物可及性来协同调节酶活性位点。作为功能性的下一步，基于树突的蛋白质模拟本研究将解决对树突表面和分支结构的控制。所提出的螺旋状树状大分子将是一种新型的合成蛋白质模型系统，它结合了结构和功能元素，并将代表第一个具有明确定义和可调结构秩序的含肽树状大分子。Castellano的项目将补充Diederich博士实验室正在进行的关于识别和催化功能树突分子的研究，并有望帮助树突生物模拟领域取得重大进展。Diederich博士在分子识别和超分子结构方面拥有近20年的经验。他是仿生树突分子化学领域的领军人物。ETH将提供生物和化学科学的独特融合，使其成为生物有机研究项目的理想场所。这项研究将对生物化学，特别是生物识别合成化学和纳米级材料的自组装等领域产生影响

0076184CastellanoThe International Research Fellow Awards Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.This award will provide Dr. Ronald K. Castellano with support for twenty-four months to work with Dr. Francois Diederich at Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland. This project is being co-funded by NSF's Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences' Office of Multidisciplinary Activities.This project involves the study of programmed structural order in functional dendrimer protein mimics. Dendrimers are symmetrically-branched molecules. In biological systems, secondary and tertiary protein structures work cooperatively to modulate the enzyme active site by exposing functionality and providing substrate accessibility. As a next step toward functional, dendrimer-based protein mimics this research will address control over dendrimer surface and branching structure. The proposed coiled coil dendrimers will be a new class of synthetic protein model systems that combine both structural and functional elements and will represent the first peptide-containing dendrimers to demonstrate well-defined and tunable structural order.Dr. Castellano's project will complement ongoing research at Dr. Diederich's lab, on functional dendrimers for recognition and catalysis and promises to help work toward major advances in the field of dendritic biological mimics. Dr. Diederich has nearly 20 years of experience in molecular recognition and supramolecular architectures. He is a leader in biomimetic dendrimer chemistry. The ETH will provide a unique melding of biological and chemical sciences making it the ideal place to this bioorganic research project. This research will have impacts in fields such as biochemistry, specifically biometric synthetic chemistry and in self assembly of nanoscale materials.***