Rational design of peptide affinity ligands for the purification of therapeutic enzymes.

Non-mAb biologics represent a growing class of therapeutics under clinical development. Although affinity chromatography is a potentially attractive approach for purification, the development of platform technologies, such as Protein A for mAbs, has been challenging due to the inherent chemical and structural diversity of these molecules. Here, we present our studies on the rapid development of peptide affinity ligands for the purification of biologics using a prototypical enzyme therapeutic in clinical use.

Molecular Architecture of the Blood Brain Barrier Tight Junction Proteins--A Synergistic Computational and In Vitro Approach.

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) constituted by claudin-5 tight junctions is critical in maintaining the homeostasis of the central nervous system, but this highly selective molecular interface is an impediment for therapeutic interventions in neurodegenerative and neurological diseases. Therapeutic strategies that can exploit the paracellular transport remain elusive due to lack of molecular insights of the tight junction assembly. This study focuses on analyzing the membrane driven cis interactions of claudin-5 proteins in the formation of the BBB tight junctions.

Design and fabrication of human skin by three-dimensional bioprinting.

Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting, a flexible automated on-demand platform for the free-form fabrication of complex living architectures, is a novel approach for the design and engineering of human organs and tissues. Here, we demonstrate the potential of 3D bioprinting for tissue engineering using human skin as a prototypical example. Keratinocytes and fibroblasts were used as constituent cells to represent the epidermis and dermis, and collagen was used to represent the dermal matrix of the skin.