Research Highlight #1:

In Silico Design of Novel Inorganic Binding Peptides

Ersin Emre Oren, Ram Samudrala, Candan Tamerler and Mehmet Sarikaya;
Materials Science & Engineering and Microbiology, University of Washington

The robust utility of genetically engineered peptides for inorganics (GEPI) in practical nanotechnology and medicine requires labor-intensive selection, using genetic tools, and characterization, via advanced microscopy and spectroscopy. Based on the experimental knowledge, a recently developed in-silico protocol provides means to design novel peptide sequences with enhanced binding affinity and multifunctionality. The new approach has a great potential of accelerating the utility of GEPI as synthesizers and assemblers of nanoinroganics with applications as molecular-probes in bio- and chemical-sensing, as -scaffolds in regenerative medicine, and as -platforms in nanobiophotonics.

Contact M. Sarikaya, for more details, sarikaya@u.washington.edu.

Bioinformatics, 23 2816-2822 (2007).