News & Events / BME Seminar Series / Past Seminar Speakers / 2018-19Matthew Tirrell, PhD
BME Seminar Series Spring 2019
Thursday, May 2, 2019 at 4-5 pm
Tech L361
Host: Professor Eric Perreault
Dean and Founding Pritzker Director of the Institute for Molecular Engineering, The University of Chicago
Protein Analogous Micelles: Versatile, Modular Nanoparticles
Peptides are functional modules of protein macromolecules that can be displayed apart from the whole protein to create biofunctional surfaces and interfaces, or can be re-assembled in new ways to create synthetic mimics of protein structures. Each of these routes is being employed to gain new insight into protein folding and to develop new, functional, bio-molecular materials. That is what we call protein analogous micelles. Examples of work from our laboratory in this area using peptide-lipid or peptide-polycation conjugate molecules (peptide amphiphiles) include: multi-bio-functional surfaces, DNA-binding peptide assemblies, synthetic vaccines, and protein analogous micelles for cancer and cardiovascular therapeutics. One specific example is the micelle we have developed that has a targeting peptide on the exterior of the corona and charged-complexed micro-RNA in the core. This is a theranostic nanoparticle that can home to pathological cardiovascular tissue and deliver a therapeutic molecular locally.