Genetically encoded biomaterials that self-assemble across multiple length scales

Elastin like polypeptides (ELPs), composed of repeats of VPGXG pentapeptides that recur in all tropoelastin sequences, are the best studied class of peptide polymers that exhibit lower critical solution temperature (LCST) phase behavior in water, and these polymers have enabled innovative approaches to nanoparticle self-assembly, cancer therapy, regenerative medicine and protein purification. I will discuss how this class of intrinsically disordered polypeptides is an enormously mutable model system that has allowed us to probe the sequence origins of aqueous phase behavior in polypeptides, leading to the identification of sequence heuristics for the de novo design of peptide polymers that exhibit aqueous phase behavior. I will also discuss how we have used ELPs as a template to encode higher order, hierarchical self-assembly into macroscopic biomaterials by modulating the degree of order in these intrinsically disordered polymers, and by genetically encoding a post-translational modification into an ELP.