Technology of Chemical and Physical Processing of Proteins for Functional Surfaces

Abstract

The habilitation will present progress in the field of surface treatment of materials using biopolymer systems based on proteins and their conjugates. Procedures for modification of selected macromolecular systems will be solved so that their function, activity and sensitivity are not affected after their controlled deposition on the surface. The first part of the work will focus on the modification of gold surfaces using protein-DNA conjugates. It will be shown how the parallel treatment of surfaces and enzyme allows the installation of active protein on gold electrodes for electrochemical detection of enzymatically catalyzed reactions. As part of this research, a biochip was developed in collaboration with Siemens for the detection of bacteria in food sources. The second part of the work will focus on the processing of protein materials based on spider silk, which can be produced recombinantly on a large scale. Methods for preparing nanofibrils, microparticles, coatings, and hydrogels whose surfaces can be further functionalized with biologically active macromolecules such as enzymes or DNA will be discussed. The final part of the work will be devoted to the combination of conjugates of proteins and DNA with materials based on spider silk, which can be used to prepare microstructured surfaces for controlled capture of biologically active macromolecules in microfluidic and diagnostic devices. In terms of practical benefits, it will be shown how the progress achieved in the production of protein-modified surfaces can be implemented in high-performance biosensors in biomedical diagnostics. Furthermore, it will be shown that spider silk-based materials represent a sustainable alternative to synthetic polymer coatings. In addition, due to their biocompatibility and biodegradability, they can be advantageously used in the field of tissue engineering.