CAREER: Biomimetic Engineering of Responsive Biomaterials

Chun

0547613

One of the most powerful and the fastest motions in the biological world can be found in a single-cell ciliated protozoan, Vorticella convallaria. At one stage of its life cycle, the Vorticella consists of a cell body of approximately 50 m'm in size and a stalk of 2~3 mm long, 4 m'm wide. The Vorticella stalk is capable of contracting at a speed almost 1000 times its body size per second. The Vorticella stalk contraction is observed to be 500 times the average power of human skeletal muscle. The contractile organelle within the Vorticella stalk is a membrane-surrounded protein-based fiber structure called 'spasmoneme'.

The biological responsive materials are more efficient and effective than any synthetic materials ever made. The Vorticella spasmoneme represents an excellent example of a highly efficient responsive biomaterial. The spasmoneme functions on simple physical chemical terms of binding to calcium ion concentration. The triggered contraction is very fast and fully reversible upon removal of calcium.

The research goal of the project is to biomimetically design polymer-based biomaterials that are responsive to biological signals such as changes in calcium ion concentration by studying the spasmin protein for the design of calcium sensitive biomaterials. The research would have great societal impact in biomemetic engineering and biomaterial science. The educational component of the project will serve students at different levels. The outreach will include underrepresented undergraduate students and K-12 students. The outreach activities will be a workshop on biomimetically responsive materials for the undergraduate students at Howard University and also illustrative museum experiments of biomimetic biomaterials for the Science Museum of Minnesota.