The broad objective of this thrust is to utilize a molecular engineering approach for the development of new research tools, therapies, and diagnostic agents. At present, our efforts are focused in two areas: (1) The design of peptide-, protein-, and polymer-based supramolecular systems with utility in targeted drug delivery, cancer diagnostics, biomedial imaging, and tissue engineering; and (2) The development of improved viral vectors for gene therapy applications and the development of new paradigms for the treatment of viral infection.

Representative recent work includes:

1. Banta S, Megeed Z, Casali M, Rege K, and Yarmush ML. Proteins and peptides for nanotechnology applications. Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, 7, 387, 2007.

2. Rege K, Patel S, Megeed Z, and Yarumush ML. Amphipathic peptide-based fusion peptides and immunoconjugates for the targeted ablation of prostate cancer cells, in revision.

3. Casali M, Goldwasser J, Megeed Z, and Yarumush ML. Retroviral reverse transcriptase-mediated RNA degradation contributes to viral decay, in revision.

4. Megeed Z, Winters RM, Yarmush ML, Modulation of single-chain antibody affinity with temperature-responsive elastin-like polypeptide linkers. Biomacromolecules, 7, 999, 2006.

5. Janorkar A, Rajagopalan P, Yarmush ML, and Megeed Z. ELP-polyelectrolyte structure confers control over hepatocyte morphology and function, submitted.