Designer Self-Assembling Peptide Materials
Xiaojun Zhao2007, Macromolecular Bioscience
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Abstract
Molecular self-assembly is ubiquitous in Nature, from lipids that form oil droplets in water, and surfactants that form micelles and other complex structures in water, to sophisticated multiunit ribosome and virus assemblies. Nature is a grand master who utilizes the strategy to bottom-up build hierarchical materials. These elegant molecular self-assembly systems lie at the interface between biochemistry, molecular biology, peptide and protein chemistry, macromolecular science, materials science, and engineering. The key elements are chemical
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