Design of biomolecules for nanoengineered biomaterials for regenerative medicine.

An important goal in the development of highly functional organic materials is to design self-assembling molecules that can reproducibly display chemical signals across length scales. Within the biomedical field, biomolecules are highly attractive candidates to serve as bioactive building blocks for the next generation of biomaterials. The peptide amphiphiles (PAs) developed by the Stupp Laboratory at Northwestern University generated a highly versatile self-assembly code to create well-defined bioactive nanofibers that have been proven to be very effective at signaling cells in vitro and in vivo. Here, we describe the basic steps necessary for synthesis and assembly of PA molecules into functional nanostructures.