I-Corps: Novel, collagen-based biomaterial

这个I-Corps团队项目的广泛影响是一种新的胶原蛋白模拟材料，将导致开发更安全、更便宜和可定制的医疗应用产品。胶原蛋白在医药、医药、个人护理用品、食品工业和皮革工业中都有应用。动物产品传播病原体的事件增加了市场对更安全的非哺乳动物胶原来源的压力。这种新型的模拟胶原原纤维有望成为一种安全的胶原替代品，用于许多与胶原相关的应用。这些新材料可以设计为满足特定应用的需要，并且可能比传统的胶原蛋白产品更通用和有效。潜在的商业影响是新一代胶原蛋白相关的生物材料，用于皮肤护理，骨骼和关节健康，控制药物释放装置和伤口愈合。这个I-Corps团队项目将确定并建立与医疗领域和个人护理行业的潜在合作伙伴的关系。长期以来，胶原蛋白因其抗拉强度和生物相容性的结合而受到追捧。新兴的肽生物技术提高了生产模拟胶原肽的希望，这种肽可以作为一种安全、经济可行的替代从动物身上提取的胶原。然而，直到最近，蛋白质设计还不能产生适应天然胶原纤维构象的肽材料。这个项目建立在第一个这样的原纤维形成三螺旋肽的发展。自组装的模拟胶原原纤维具有轴向重复结构的特征，使人联想到组织中纤维胶原的d期结构。模拟胶原原纤维可作为分子支架，用于制备具有与天然胶原原纤维相当的超分子结构和抗拉强度的生物材料。自下而上的方法使得为特定应用定制材料成为可能。

The broader impact of this I-Corps Team project is a new collagen-mimetic material that will lead to the development of safer, cheaper, and customizable products for medical applications. Collagen has applications in medicine, pharmaceuticals, personal care products, food industry, and leather industry. The incidences of transmission of pathogens from animal products have added to the market pressure for safer, non-mammalian sources of collagens. The novel, collagen-mimetic fibrils are expected to be a safe collagen-alternative for many collagen-related applications. These new materials can be designed to cater the needs of specific applications and is potentially more versatile and effective than the traditional collagen products. The potential commercial impact is a new generation of collagen-related biomaterials for skin care, bone and joint health, controlled drug release devices, and wound healing.This I-Corps Team project will identify and establish relationships with potential partners across the medical field and the personal care industry. Collagen has long been sought after for its combination of tensile strength and biocompatibility. The emerging peptide biotechnology raised hope of producing collagen-mimetic peptides that can be a safe, economically viable alternative to collagens extracted from animals. Until recently, however, protein design could not produce peptide materials that adapt to the fibril conformation of natural collagens. This project builds upon the development of the first of such fibril-forming triple helical peptide. The self-assembled collagen-mimetic fibrils have the characteristic axial repeating structure reminiscent of that of the D-period of fibrillar collagens in tissues. The collagen-mimetic fibrils can be used as molecular scaffold to create biomaterials that have the supramolecular structure and the tensile strength comparable to that of natural collagen fibrils. The bottom-up approach makes it possible to customize the materials for specific applications.