General Biology Seminar
The self-‐assembly of proteins into highly ordered nanoscale architectures is a hallmark of
biological systems and enables them to perform specialized func:ons. Methods for engineering novel self-‐
assembling proteins offer the promise of designing custom nanoscale molecular machines with
structures and func:ons that go beyond what is found in nature. However, encoding the informa:on
necessary for self-‐assembly is challenging due to the complex forces governing protein structures
and interac:ons. I will talk about our recent efforts to develop general computa:onal methods for
the design of novel self-‐assembling protein nanomaterials, and the applica:on of these methods to
the produc:on of both one-‐component (homomeric) and two-‐component
(heteromeric) nanoscale cages with atomic-‐level accuracy.