Protein-based materials medical applications

The Comprehensive Capacity to Control Association of Oil-like Domains Provides the Necessary Understanding for Meaningful Engineering of Protein-based Materials for Diverse Medical and Nonmedical Applications... 

Finally, for medical applications, the extraordinary biocompatibility of these elastic protein-based materials, we believe, arises from the specific means whereby these elastic protein-based polymers exhibit their motion. Being composed of repeating peptide sequences that order into regular, nonrandom, dynamic structures, these elastic protein-based polymers exhibit mechanical resonances that present barriers to the approach of antibodies as required to be identified as foreign. In addition, we also believe that these mechanical resonances result in extraordinary absorption properties in the acoustic frequency range. 

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,... 

A major element when considering medical applications is the potential antigenicity of protein-based materials and the adequacy of means of purification, especially when prepared... 

The wealth of natural examples provides immense inspiration for the molecular design of novel peptide-based materials that can be potentially applied as devices, sensors, and biomaterials for medical applications. In addition to hierarchical self-assembly, nature uses other mechanisms, for example, enzyme-mediated covalent cross-linking, to build up structural proteins and higher-ordered structures. In the following sections we will focus on manmade peptide-based materials that belong to the three classes listed below. They will be split with respect to the underlying design concept into materials formed by ... 

Hopefully, the foregoing brief lists provides some insight into the potential of protein-based polymers in the marketplace. There simply are no comparable soft materials for medical applications. Certain of the above-listed advantages are discussed in more detail immediately below and throughout this chapter. 

As introduced in Chapter 1, the present chapter constitutes Assertion 4 The Applications Assertion of the book. Production and purification are first addressed, as they obviously make up the initial enabling steps in moving toward applications of any materials. The most surefooted path toward materials applications of protein-based polymers, however, intertwines issues of production and purification through a combination of the two methods of preparation—chemical synthesis and biosynthesis. Chemical synthesis proved the biocompatibility of elastic protein-based polymers and therefore opened the door to medical applications. Demonstration of the biocompatibility of the chemically synthesized product made clear the purification required of elastic protein-based polymers produced by E. coli if unlimited medical applications were to be possible. Chemical synthesis also provided a faster route to diverse polymer compositions, which allowed... 

However, in the last decade the main application of bacterial cellulose has been in the biomedical materials field [13,46,55-57], Due to its unique nanostructure and properties, microbial cellulose is a nattnal candidate for numerous medical and tissue-engineered apphcations. In fact, much work has already been focused on designing ideal biomedical devices from BNC, such as artificial skin, blood vessels, cornea, urethra, bone, cartilage, porcine knee menisci, and heart valve prosthesis as well as deliveries of drug, hormone and protein [58-62], Figure 2,5 illustrates some of the prospects for the various biomedical applications of BNC-based materials. 

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