Computationally Driven-Genetically Engineered Materials is a National Science Foundation program (DMR-1728858) supported by collaborative research through Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer Our Future, which focuses on creating theranostic materials. Members of the Preclinical Imaging Laboratory, NYU Tandon School of Engineering, and NYU are participating in this initiative.

Theranostic materials are emerging as promising targeted therapeutic scaffolds. These materials take advantage of high-capacity biomaterials to deliver drugs of interest in combination with various imaging modalities. In this project, we intend to develop theranostic coiled-coil protein fibers through computational design and experimental analysis with the objective to predictably achieve the following aims:

• control the self-assembly into fibers on the mesoscale with functional capability of small molecule recognition
• integrate noncanonical fluorinated amino acids that encode thermostability and traceability
• biomineralize and organize Fe₃O₄NPs onto the protein fiber substrates leading to image-ready bionanocomposites with magnetic properties

Principal Investigators

Richard Bonneau, PhD

Jin K. Montclare, PhD

Youssef Z. Wadghiri, PhD

Postdocs and Students

Erika Delgado-Fukushima

Lindsay Hill

Priya Katyal, PhD

Kamia Punia, PhD

Doug Renfrew, PhD

Shamim Reza, PhD

Xuan Xie

Outreach

Our outreach team includes mentors and teachers.

Outreach Mentors

Serena Monique Jones

Priya Katyal, PhD

Jin K. Montclare, PhD

Madeleine P. Nicolas

Xuan Xie

Outreach Teachers

Dorothy Cupka

Damon Noland

Collaborators

Jeffery J. Gray, PhD

John Karanicolas, PhD

Kent Krishenbaum, PhD

Brain Kuhlam, PhD

Jens Meiler, PhD