ABSTRACT
When applied to biomaterials design, protein engineering provides a powerful set of tools to create systems with modularity, environmental responsiveness, and nanoscale control over the presentation of bioactive molecules. These functionalities stem from the ability of protein and peptide domains to self-assemble via non-covalent interactions, an ability that is governed by the structure-function relationships of the protein or peptide. When readily available molecular biology techniques are used to create new and engineer existing proteins and peptides an approach emerges where one can control the macroscopic properties of a biomaterial through molecular-level design. In this chapter we review a number of examples of protein-and peptide-based biomaterials that exemplify this approach, and in doing so attempt to provide a general overview of the field and its potential for advancing tissue and organ engineering.
