Materials World Network: Synthesis and Characterization of Molecular Building Blocks for Responsive Materials

该奖项由克利夫兰州立大学（CSU）生物材料项目和材料研究部特别项目办公室颁发，旨在研究响应性水凝胶材料，这种材料可以在体积上表现出剧烈变化，并在微小的环境变化下产生力。科罗拉多州立大学的Holland教授和德国慕尼黑工业大学的Hugel教授将结合美国在聚合物化学和蛋白质科学方面的专业知识，以及德国在单分子操作和表面化学方面的专业知识。这些受温度、pH值、光或其他溶液性质刺激的反应性材料可以应用于生物材料、药物输送装置和微流体装置。目前反应性水凝胶的主要限制是反应时间慢，体积变化小。此次合作的目标是通过开发分子尺度响应亚基来克服这些限制。这些分子构建块将仅由三个连接在一起的多肽链组成，并且将对其环境做出反应，而不会被纳入更大的无序凝胶中。由于其有组织的折叠结构，这些材料有望比传统的反应性水凝胶更快地做出反应，并表现出更大的尺寸缩小百分比。当这些构建块连接起来形成更大的响应网络时，这些好处应该保留下来。这项多学科合作的成果将用于开发新型响应材料，这些材料可以转化为新的生物医学应用和纳米科学，例如光驱动分子马达、用于控制释放的快速响应水凝胶和定向响应纤维。它们更快、更大的反应将为发现和开发反应性材料的新用途开辟道路。这项研究旨在整合各个层次的教育——从介绍高中生到支持博士研究。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)This Materials World Network program award by the Biomaterials program and Office of Special Programs in the Division of Materials Research to Cleveland State University (CSU) is to study responsive hydrogel materials that can exhibit drastic changes in their volume and generate force with small environmental changes. This collaborative effort by Prof. Holland at CSU and Prof. Hugel at Technical University Munich in Germany will combine the expertise in polymer chemistry and protein sciences in the US and the expertise in single molecule manipulation and surface chemistry in Germany. These responsive materials, stimulated by temperature, pH, light, or other solution property, could have applications as biomaterials, drug delivery devices, and in microfluidic devices. The major limitations of current responsive hydrogels are their slow response time and small volume changes. The objective of this collaboration is to overcome these limitations by developing molecular scale responsive subunits. These molecular building blocks will be composed of only three polypeptide chains linked together, and will respond to their environment without being incorporated in a larger disordered gel. Because of their organized folded structure, these materials are expected to respond much more quickly and exhibit a greater percent reduction in size than the traditional responsive hydrogels. These benefits should be retained when these building blocks are connected to form larger responsive networks. The results of this multidisciplinary collaboration will be in the development of novel responsive materials that can be translated to new biomedical applications, and nanoscience, such as optically driven molecular motors, fast response hydrogels for controlled release, and oriented responsive fibers. Their considerably faster and larger responses will open the path to discover and develop new uses for responsive materials. The research is designed to integrate education at all levels - from introducing high school students to research through supporting doctoral research.