Rice University’s Caroline Ajo-Franklin is part of an international research team funded by the United Kingdom’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), under its Universal Fabricator program. Ajo-Franklin, the Ralph and Dorothy Looney Professor of BioSciences, will work with the S-LATTICE team led by Louise Horsfall at the University of Edinburgh.
“This program seeks to invent and scale a completely new type of protein-based manufacturing,” Ajo-Franklin said. “Working towards this transformative vision with an international team of superstar scientists is the opportunity of a lifetime."
Supported by an approximately $7 million grant from ARIA, the S-LATTICE team will work to build two-dimensional metal-protein frameworks from proteins. Specifically, they will use surface layer proteins found in the tough outer coat of many bacteria and archaea cells, which self-assemble to create regular, porous sheets. The team will use metal-binding chemistry to add metals to this protein sheet, allowing for adjustable pore sizes that could be used for filtration. Ajo-Franklin, a founding director of the Rice Synthetic Biology Institute, brings a deep expertise in synthetic biology. Her lab specializes in the nanoscale interface between living microbes and inorganic materials like metals.
“This project is an excellent example of how Rice Synthetic Biology Institute faculty take collaborative approaches to solve big problems,” institute director Jeffrey Tabor said. “I am excited to see how ARIA’s support will enable Caroline’s work on S-LATTICE and how her expertise will help drive this global collaboration.”
S-LATTICE is one of 11 teams funded by the Universal Fabricators program, which seeks to develop scalable processes to manufacture proteins-based materials for use in electronics, energy, infrastructure and more.