Jeewon Lee
Korea University, Korea
Title: Nano/biomaterial engineering through molecular reassembly on proteinticle scaffold
Biography
Biography: Jeewon Lee
Abstract
Proteinticles are nanoscale three-dimensional (3D) particles that are synthesized through self-assembly of multiple subunit proteins inside cells. Each proteinticle has a specific biological function and conformation (size, shape, symmetry pattern, and surface topology), including viral capsids1-5 and various cellular 3D structures5-10 such as proteasome, ferritin, chaperonins, etc. A notable advantage of proteinticles is that a variety of heterologous proteins/peptides (e.g. bioprobes to capture disease-specific biomarkers1,5-7, cancer celltargeting ligands2,3,8,9, fluorescent proteins4, recombinant peptides for on-site synthesis or conjugation of various nanomaterials2,3, etc.) can be genetically presented on the proteinticle surface with preserving their native function and structure through site-specific modification of subunit proteins. This suggests that proteinticles can be used as structurally versatile scaffolds for nano/biofunctional integration. In this lecture, I will introduce several important examples of functionally integrated nano/biomaterials that were developed through welldesigned molecular reassembly on the surface of proteinticle scaffolds: 3D bioprobes for accurate and rapid in vitro diagnosis, clinically feasible multimodality agent for cancer theragnosis, and industrially promising enzyme nanoparticles comprising genetically reassembled catalytic units. This novel approach of material engineering based on molecular reassembly using proteinticle scaffolds may provide a general platform for the facile production of a broad range of utility nano/biomaterials..