Biomimetic Sensors, Catalysts, and Materials: Chemistry at the Bio/Abio Interface

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With support from the Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry Program (MSN) in the Division of Chemistry, Professor Lauren Webb of The University of Texas at Austin is combining surface chemical synthesis and advanced chemical analytics tools to study how proteins behave in abiological contexts. Integrating biological molecules into artificial environments allows biologically relevant function to be combined with synthetic materials in order to incorporate, rather than replicate, these capabilities in an artificial context. At this so-called “bio/abio” interface, basic biological functions can be co-opted to detect analytes with exceptional sensitivity or to catalyze the synthesis of useful molecules under environmentally friendly reaction conditions. Professor Webb and her students are addressing the central challenges of preparing and characterizing these systems by combining synthetic and biological chemistry. Their discoveries could lead to new approaches for protein-based sensors, catalysts and biomaterials as they develop characterize, manipulate, and explore an entirely new generation of biologically functional materials. Professor Webb is the State Director of the Welch Summer Scholars Program (WSSP), a 39-year program that provides rising high school students in the state of Texas with an authentic, significant, and meaningful summer residential research experience in the chemical sciences. Broader Impacts activities over the next three years of this proposal will 1) develop an online summer seminar program designed for all Texas high school students and chemistry teachers; and 2) grow a WSSP alumni network for mentoring and career development of the extraordinary alumni base of this program.The long-standing, central challenge to creating biologically-inspired functional devices and materials is to integrate native biomolecular structure, dynamics, and function into an abiological environment; each “bio” and “abio” component carries its own unique set of properties that must interact in an entirely new context. Professor Webb and her students are studying the behavior of biomolecular-material interactions for each individual component to synthesize, characterize, and expand bio/abio science to sensing, catalysis, and synthesis of novel biological materials for a wide variety of potential applications. The students involved in this project will gain a wide range of experience in surface chemical synthesis and a suite of chemical analysis techniques including infrared spectroscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), surface circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, neutron reflectometry (NR) and scanning probe microscopy.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.