The impact of building block aspect ratio on the hierarchical architecture of folded protein hydrogels

Hydrogels are 3D self-assembled self-supporting networks of cross-linked hydrophilic building blocks swollen by large volumes of water. we use folded globular proteins as hydrogel building blocks, in order to harness their intrinsic mechanical properties together with their biological functionality. Our ambitious goal is to obtain the underlying design principles of these gels, by gaining a cross-length scale understanding of the structural and mechanical properties of folded protein hydrogels. In this new proposal we aim to exploit building block aspect ratio to control hydrogel network formation, structure and mechanics, where aspect ratio describes the ratio of height and width of the engineered protein. Such insight will provide a powerful platform for controlling intermediate structure in hierarchical networks and a novel route to tuning hydrogels with tailored properties.