The field of bio-mimetic materials has until recently been dominated by approaches build on recombinantly created or otherwise reused biological materials such as collagen and elastin on one hand or by traditional polymer synthesis on the other – and occasionally a mixture of the two. Both have considerable limitations that largely stem from the lack of flexibility of the macromolecular network, and in the case of synthetic polymers in particular, the fact that these systems are not chemically well-defined with associated lack of batch-to-batch reproducibility.
Lately there has also been a surge in demand for better 3D in vitro cell culture materials as researchers have come to realise that the 3D environment of a cell is enormously important in various cellular process including growth, division and cell death. Several biological (e.g. Matrigel) and synthetic polymeric materials have been developed for 3D in vitro cell culture but most of these suffer from the above issues.
I will describe here work on using short synthetic peptides to make bio-mimetic materials or gels via self-assembly. A significant part of our concerns using synthetic design to control the mechanical properties of these materials1,2 as well as their biocompatibility.3 These peptide-based materials are excellent candidates for 3D in vitro cell cultures as well as other applications that require good bio-mimetic materials such as drug delivery and tissue engineering to take but two examples from the field of nanomedicine.