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Professor Rein Ulijn

Repurposing the molecules and rules of life for nanotechnology

Short Abstract:

We are interested in how functionality emerges from interactions between biomolecules, and subsequently how these functions can be incorporated into functional materials.1 Instead of using sequences known in biological systems, we use unbiased computational and experimental approaches to search and map the peptide sequence space for specific interactions and functions, which has provided new families of functional short peptides.2-4 The talk will focus on our latest results in three areas. First, we will demonstrate how to program molecular order and disorder in tripeptides, and how the conformations adopted by these peptides can be exploited to regulate assembly properties, and give rise to tunable fluorescence properties.5Second, chemo-mechanical peptide-crystals that change their properties upon changes in hydration states will be discusse.6 Finally, we will demonstrate how dynamic exchange of peptide sequences can form adaptive interactomes.7  

 

References:  

1.     F. Sheehan, et al., Chem. Rev., 2021, accepted.

2.     P.W.J.M. Frederix, et al., Nature Chem., 2015, 7, 30-37. 

3.     C.G. Pappas, et al., Nature Nanotechnol., 2016, 11, 960.

4.     A. Lampel, et al. Science, 2017, 356, 1064.

5.     A. Lampel, et al., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2021, 60, 7564-7569.

6.     D. Kroiss, et al., ChemSysChem, 2019, 1, 7-11.

7.     R. Piotrowska, et al., Nature Materials, 2021, 20, 403-409.

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Short CV:

Rein Ulijn is founding Director of the Nanoscience Initiative at the Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) at CUNY, New York. He was awarded a Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship, the RSC Norman Heatley Medal, Royal Society Merit Award, and was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He is the Einstein Professor of Chemistry at Hunter College of CUNY and was previously Professor of Chemistry at the University of Strathclyde, UK, and Assistant Professor in Biomaterials at the University of Manchester, UK. He gained his PhD in biophysical chemistry from the University of Strathclyde and MSc in biotechnology from Wageningen University, the Netherlands. 

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