(54f) Programming Biomaterial Self-Assembly to Advance Molecular Robotics and Gene Delivery

Synthesizing biomaterials using nature’s building blocks enables engineers to construct highly programmable devices with unprecedented control over chemical and physical properties, providing a basis for next generation smart materials with applications in biology, manufacturing, and medicine. Here, I will highlight my advances using engineered biomaterials to build 1) controllable nanoscale kinematic joints and mechanisms and 2) polymeric nanoparticles for nucleic acid delivery. First, we leveraged the unique structural properties of DNA to create mechanical joints and multi-joint mechanisms with defined 2D and 3D motion. We then use these to demonstrate multiple actuation methods for conformational control of dynamic nanostructures. Second, we took advantage of the strong negative charge of therapeutic nucleic acids to sequester them inside nanoparticle cores using cationic polypeptides, while a neutral polymer shell protects them from nucleases and immune response. We probed molecular details of each component to understand their effect on complex stability and to establish physical property scaling laws, improving tailored design of therapeutic nanoparticles. In the future I plan to incorporate aspects from both assembly methods to construct biohybrid engineering devices capable of translating molecular interactions to mesoscale smart materials.