(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2017-01-10)
Champion, Julie A.
Protein drugs can provide a key
advantage over small molecule drugs; they evolved to perform their function, while small molecules
are often selected for “best” function compared to a pool of candidates. However, proteins can
present challenges in delivery that must be overcome in order to be used as therapeutic drugs. Their
folded structure is critical to their biological function and makes them sensitive and difficult to
package. However, this structure also provides an opportunity to create materials from them that is
not available for small molecules. The main goal of our work is to engineer materials made from
therapeutic proteins and this is accomplished through a combination of self-assembly and/or bioconjugation
processes. The ability to control these processes is essential to manipulating material
physical properties, ensuring retention of protein activity, and directing the interactions between the
materials and cells. The strategies developed here provide opportunities to work with unlikely
proteins, such as those from pathogenic bacteria, and transform them from disease causing agents into beneficial therapeutic materials. Protein design, self-assembly and disassembly properties, and
applications of therapeutic protein materials in immunomodulation will be discussed.