Driving forces of self-assembly in protein-polymer bioconjugates

Protein-polymer bioconjugates have shown great promise as high-performance biomaterials, with a diverse range of applications. Bioconjugation to a polymer allows the protein to maintain or even enhance its activity while imparting self-assembly capabilities to the overall material, which provide control over the orientation and nanostructure of the bioconjugates, enabling the design of materials with superior transport properties and high stability. The phase behavior of globular protein-polymer bioconjugates is comparable to that of traditional synthetic polymer block copolymers and leads to the formation of many of the same nanostructures. Despite these similarities, there are also key differences between these systems. The phase behavior of protein-polymer bioconjugates is affected by coarse-grained properties of both the protein and polymer. However, a unifying theory describing the self-assembly of these materials does not yet exist.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Yao, Helen,Ph. D.Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Bradley D. Olsen.

• Chemical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/130592

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/130592