Nanoscale Electric Fields in Self-Assembled Optoelectronic Biomaterials

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Non-technical: This award by the Biomaterials program in the Division of Materials Research, and co-funded by the Nano-Biosensors Program in the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems (ENG/CBET) to the Johns Hopkins University, is to study electroactive biomaterials that are relevant to regenerating nerves, cardiac tissue and skeletal muscle, all known to respond to external electrical impulses. New electroactive biomaterials that are capable of acting both as field carriers and as better cell migration matrices will be poised to impact many emerging tissue engineering and bioenergy applications. Before these impacts can be realized, it will be critical to quantitatively characterize the magnitude of electric fields present in these constructs and the specific impacts on cell biology. These investigations span several areas of contemporary materials science thus requiring a cooperative scientific effort among chemistry and engineering. The approach described here builds on a new material platform developed at Johns Hopkins whereby small organic molecules are combined with electronic and biological functions. The molecules thus created can self-associate under biological conditions to yield nanoscopic fibrils that resemble the structural elements of the extracellular matrix. The present project seeks to understand how the electronic properties of these nanoscale materials will impact cell behavior and to use this knowledge to engineer specific cellular outcomes directed by optoelectronic inputs. This research will expose students to the state of the art in biomaterial design and characterization techniques used for optoelectronic and in vitro studies.Technical: This award to Johns Hopkins University will support an innovative program in optoelctronic biomaterials that combines organic-based electronic function and cell-growth-promoting oligopeptides. It involves a systematic study of the synthesis of peptide nanomaterials, the assessment of their electrical and photonic properties under aqueous and biotic environments, and the assessment of their cellular influence in vitro. The key hypothesis is that nanoscale electric fields engineered into peptide-based hydrogel scaffolds will have direct spatial and temporal influence on cell adhesion and growth. New electroactive biomaterials that are capable of acting both as field carriers and as better cell migration matrices will be poised to impact many emerging tissue engineering and bioenergy applications. Before these impacts can be realized, it will be critical to quantitatively characterize the magnitude of electric fields present in these constructs and the specific impacts on both material properties and cell biology.