Exploiting the programmable assembly of proteins to engineer living matrices for medicine and healthcare

Biological microenvironments are inherently complex in Nature. Structural and mechanical hierarchy and compositional heterogeneity are ubiquitous in biological systems and play a key role on the functionality of the living system. Unfortunately, this complexity is also important pathological conditions, where cells in a tumour microenvironment are spatially localised and possess specific mechanical properties. New tools are needed to explore the role of patterning in biological systems so that we can harness the rich functionality and complexity of biological structures. This project will address this challenge by creating a workflow for the routine creation of patterned engineered matrices composed of folded proteins for application in health and disease. We will exploit programmable photoactivated patterning to control the protein network assembly, and enable the modular design of matrices with pre-defined spatially demarcated and time-dependent material properties. We will exemplify this approach to generate dynamic patterned matrices for adaptive phenotypic switching of cell development and spatial modulation of matrix stiffness for disease modelling.