When you hear the term materials science, you might think of things like new ways to use different metals or crystals. Materials scientists also study tiny proteins, and understanding how to control their behavior would enable scientists to create novel materials at the molecular level. Researchers at the University of Delaware (UD) are using their U.S. National Science Foundation ACCESS allocation to stabilize proteins so they’re suitable for creating new materials.
Darrin Pochan, a distinguished professor of materials science at UD’s College of Engineering, has been leading a team of researchers designing specialized peptide nanoparticles, called bundlemers, that can self-assemble into different organized materials depending on the acidity or alkalinity (pH) of their environment. Proteins are typically fragile structures, but the bundlemers are incredibly tough, remaining stable no matter the pH surrounding them.
“This work is fundamental research that opens the door to potentially beautiful technology,” said Pochan, “Sustained federal, industrial and university investment in this kind of basic science is essential for real innovation in the long run.”
Pochan’s team completed their work thanks to their allocation on Stampede3, one of the supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC). With high-performance computing resources (HPC), the researchers were able to simulate these complex systems.
“TACC’s Stampede3 supercomputer resources are essential for these simulations,” said study co-author Jeffery Saven of the University of Pennsylvania. “The methods involved with this project make use of Stampede3’s versatile capabilities,” Saven added. “In addition to molecular simulations, the resource enables the computational modeling of lattices. High-memory nodes facilitate the computational design of bundlemer sequences.”
By streamlining access to leading-edge computational resources, the NSF ACCESS program empowers researchers to focus on the fundamental scientific questions that computational science can help answer.
–Jeffery Saven, University of Pennsylvania
The team recently published their work in Science. For more details about this important research, see the original article here: Designing Protein Building Blocks For Advanced Materials.
If you’re a researcher interested in using HPC in your research project, or if you’re an educator who would like to use ACCESS-allocated resources in the classroom, you can get started with ACCESS here.
Resource Provider Institution(s): Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC)
Resources Used: Stampede3
Affiliations: University of Delaware
Funding Agency: NSF
Grant or Allocation Number(s): CHE110041
The science story featured here was enabled by the U.S. National Science Foundation’s ACCESS program, which is supported by National Science Foundation grants #2138259, #2138286, #2138307, #2137603, and #2138296.