A SAIANI

Our group is working towards understanding the fundamental link between building block structure, mesoscopic structure, material properties and cell response of self assembling oligopeptides. This work brings a fundamental understanding of self-assembly and gelation processes that enables effective material design. Consequently we are able to direct the morphology (e.g.: fiber size, porosity, roughness) and mechanical properties (e.g.: modulus, viscosity) of our materials and tailor them to specific application needs. In particular we are elucidating the molecular drivers for ß-sheet forming peptide self-assembly across the length scales by synthesising short peptides with different amino acid sequences to systematically examine the effect of hydrophobicity, charge distribution and amino acid size/type. We are also fully characterising the structure and properties of the functional self-assembled networks and exploring their potential for therapeutic and clinical application... The..

Primary location: United Kingdom