Protein-based materials development

Advanced Materials for the Future Protein-based Materials with Potential to Sustain Individual Health and Societal Development... 

Health care costs in the United States exceed a staggering trillion dollars per year. Low back pain, urinary incontinence, pressure ulcers (e.g., bed sores), and cardiovascular disease are major contributors to decreased quality of life and increased health care costs. Applications of protein-based materials, briefly noted in this section but discussed more extensively below, have the potential to improve quality of life while lowering health care costs for these and additional medical problems. To provide a historical backdrop and a record of the development of applications. Table 9.1 provides the set of patents resulting from our research efforts,... 

Furthermore, patients with spinal cord injuries have a high incidence of pressure ulcers and is a population that reaches beyond nursing homes and hospitals. It has been reported that 40% of this group develops pressure ulcers during initial hospitalization and rehabilitation. In fact, all populations dependent on assistive devices where soft tissue is compressed between a bony prominence and the assistive device are at increased risk for pres-sure ulcer formation. Again as discussed below, elastic protein-based materials are being tested in an appropriate animal model, and preliminary results are promising. 

There is analogy in the development of protein-based materials. Bioelastics, Inc., the general partner to Bioelastics Research Ltd. (BRL), has been working for about 15 years to arrive at a killer app that could launch the protein-based material industry. More specifically, BRL has been developing the scientific and intellectual property foundation that would pave the way for the extraordinary materials capacity of protein-based polymers to result in successful commercial applications. 

The initial preparation of protein-based polymers utilized solution and solid phase peptide chemistry. This made possible the preparation of more than 1,000 polymer compositions. As discussed in Chapter 5, these compositions were studied for determination of their basic properties, for the development of the set of phenomenological axioms for protein engineering and function, and for the demonstration of the basic mechanism that underlies function. In short, it is the chemical synthesis that has allowed development of much of the basic science and the demonstration of the potential of protein-based materials in a timely manner. Mostly because of the historical relevance, but also because of the unique contributions of chemical synthesis to arriving at satisfactory purification of microbially prepared protein-based polymers, a brief description of the chemical synthesis of protein-based polymers is given below. 

The fourth assertion applies the understanding of the new mechanism in the development of protein-based materials to improve health care, to decrease healthcare costs, and to assist in alleviating additional major problems of society. 

Up until the 1960s, milk protein-based materials were used for making glossy record album covers, buttons and decorative items. Labels for some cheeses are still made with crosslinked casein. The film-forming properties of casein and whey proteins were investigated with the aim of developing edible films and coatings [91, 92]. Caseins... 

One frozen dessert is made with Simplesse, a protein-based fat mimetic that contains no fat (37). Other dairy product developments include a fat flavor, produced by encapsulating milk fatty acids in maltodextrins (38) fat-free cottage cheeses and 2% fat milk, prepared by steam stripping cream with partial fat addback, with a cholesterol level about 60% lower than the starting material (39). 

These are exciting times for peptide based materials. The number of investigators in this field and consequently the number of publications in this area have increased tremendously in recent years. Not since the middle of the past century has there been so much activity focused on the physical properties of peptidic materials. Then, efforts were focused on determination of the fundamental elements that make up protein structures, leading to the discoveries of the a—helix and the (3-sheet. Many years of study followed where the propensities of individual and combinations of amino acids to adopt and stabilize these structures were investigated. Now, this knowledge is being applied to the preparation, assembly, and use of peptide based materials with designed sequences. This volume summarizes recent developments in all these areas. 

In order to reduce the time required to confirm the accumulation of a given recombinant protein, we have developed a cell culture system in which transgenic alfalfa callus material produced at the proliferation step of Agrobacterium-based transformation is used to initiate cell cultures. These cell suspensions can be subcultured to sustain batch production of modest protein amounts. The protein blot shown in Fig. 1.2 demonstrates our ability to detect a recombinant protein in total... 

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