Dynamic protein-based biomaterial designs for bionic coatings

Tufts University, Medford MA

Investigators

Abstract

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY This research involves a new biomaterials strategy to protect living cells. Cells experience many types of environmental stress when they are grown in culture dishes, and can easily be killed when they are injected through a syringe. Cellular stress can also cause changes in cell functions and even trigger diseases. This project utilizes modified silk, a natural and inexpensive protein biomaterial as a barrier to isolate the cells from their surroundings and protect the cells from being stressed and damaged. Ultrathin coatings on cells will be used for cell protection under unfavorable conditions to maintain normal cell functions. The results should provide insight into new biomaterial systems and interfaces for successful cell and tissue engineering. The work will also provide education and research opportunities for a broad range of students including underrepresented minorities, post-graduate entrepreneurship students, and materials science and engineering students at Tufts and beyond via dissemination. The project will provide both virtual learning tools, modules via YouTube videos, and hands-on research opportunities to underrepresented minority students in the Boston area through collaborations with UMass Boston, Roxbury Community College and Bunker Hill Community College. These partnerships will provide a unique opportunity for underrepresented minority students to gain hands-on experience with these systems to study biomaterial designs and cell interactions. TECHNICAL SUMMARY The goal of the project is to develop a new family of protein polymers that self-organize in a customizable layer-by-layer fashion, offer versatility in material properties (e.g., mechanics, crosslink type and degree, and provide shape-change features) and can be assembled and utilized with biological systems (e.g., as cell coatings). Nanocoating cells holds promise for protection against harsh environmental and processing conditions by isolating the cells from their surroundings within a physical barrier. The project focuses on a core strategy of building upon tough, selectively designable silk-like protein systems, with the utilization of selective chemistries to match structure-assembly-function biomaterial goals. The plan is to program these designs to modulate mechanics, dynamic shape changes and cell surface assembly, to establish new systems for versatile control of self-assembly that can be programmed for robust mechanical properties in the context of sensitive biological systems such as cells, enzymes and other biological entities. The strategies presented here provide potential benefits for surface engineering of cells, 3D printing, and preservation. Nanocoated cells would find use in clinical and biotechnology applications during in vitro and in vivo manipulation, where cells are exposed to a variety of stresses including proteolytic enzymes, immune attack, or hydrodynamic forces in bioreactors, in the host, or during injection-based delivery or 3D bioprinting. The work will also provide a focus for training underrepresented minority groups in techniques connecting material science and cell/tissue engineering. 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.