Synthetic Proteins: A Block Copolymer Approach

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With this award, the Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry Program in the Division of Chemistry is funding Professor Marcus Weck of the Department of Chemistry at New York University to design and develop carbon-based polymeric building blocks that fold into well-defined 3-dimentional aggregates that resemble peptide motifs common in Nature. These polymers may be used in complex, diverse, and highly functionalized polymers (plastics) for electro-optical, optical, biological, energy, biomedical and computer-based applications. The design principles that will be established as part of this research allow for the controlled and pre-determined assembly of polymeric building blocks into folded tertiary structures using non-covalent reaction chemistry. This project pairs cutting edge research with the training of undergraduate and graduate students. In addition, Professor Weck and his research team are developing an educational program "STEM Job Shadowing Experience" involving all-girls schools. Examples of other broader impact activities include hosting bimonthly third and fourth grade inner city school children and introducing them to the excitement of polymer science through a series of hands on experiments.This work is focused on the formation of heterotelechelic polymers and their assembly into architecturally well-defined 3D structures reminiscent of peptidic motifs. The building blocks wherein directional supramolecular motifs are installed on the polymer termini and the side-chains are helical, coil-like or sheet-like. Methodologies are developed towards multiblock helical copolymers based on methacrylamides and aryl isocyanides. The synthesized building blocks are used to fabricate the synthetic analog of peptidic motifs such as helix-bundles and zinc fingers. Folded motifs associated with this award are characterized using a battery of techniques including nuclear magnetic resonance, UV-Visible, fluorescence, and circular dichroism spectroscopies, as well as light and X-ray scattering techniques and atomic force microscopy. The research team performs systematic structure-property relationship studies to elucidate the effect of specific non-covalent interactions on the self-assembly behavior of the polymeric building blocks. This use of a "plug-and-play" strategy allows for the realization of tertiary and quaternary polymeric structures by design.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.