Presentation day

Wednesday  2:30 PM

 

TITLE

Nanoscale Protein-Polymer Interactions and Potential Contributions to Solid-state
Nanobioarrays

 

Abstract

This talk presents an overview of our on-going research, aiming to provide fundamental
understanding on nanoscale protein adsorption behavior and to develop more advanced, next-generation
protein arrays. Intriguing protein adsorption phenomena on nanoscale surfaces exhibiting varying degrees
of chemical heterogeneity are directly probed at the individual biomolecule level.
Specifically, we elucidate protein adsorption characteristics on the templates of diblock copolymers, blends,
and homopolymers. We also investigate location-dependent protein adsorption behavior with respect to the
size and distance of the interfacial regions defined by different polymer blocks. We carry out activity
measurements of polymeric surface-bound enzymes and compare quantitatively with their free-state
activities. We also explore protein assembly on chemically modified, polymeric nanotemplates to provide a
range of feature size/shapes in solid-state protein arrays. Our results demonstrate that self-assembling,
chemically heterogeneous, nanoscale domains in diblock copolymers can be effectively used for high
density biotemplates. Our approach will be particularly beneficial for fabricating periodic patterns of proteins
on surfaces with nanometer sizes without the use of lithographic techniques based on electron beam or
extreme UV. Insight gained from our study may be used to control the surface density, conformation,
orientation, and biofunctionality of prebound proteins in highly miniaturized proteomic applications, now
approaching nanoscale.