Professor, Bio-Nanosystems Laboratory, Research Institute of Chemical and Process Engineering, Faculty of Information Technology, University of Veszprém, (HU)
Biography
Ferenc Vonderviszt is a full Professor of Nanotechnology at the Research Institute of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Pannonia, Veszprém, Hungary. He obtained his PhD in biophysics from Eötvös University, Budapest. As a postdoctoral fellow, he spent several years in Japan working on self-assembling biological systems. His research interest is focused on the understanding of structural organization and self-assembly of a complex supramolecular nanomachine, the bacterial flagellum, and exploitation of the acquired knowledge for applications in bio-nanotechnology. He has over 50 research publications, many of them in leading international journals (Nature, Science, PNAS. He has founded and chairs the Doctoral School of Molecular- and Nanotechnologies at the University of Pannonia.
Abstract
Development of Self-Assembling Building Blocks for Creation of Filamentous Nanostructures
Our efforts aim at combining the self-assembling ability of complex biological systems with the excellent molecular recognition and catalytic properties of proteins. We work on developing building blocks capable of controlled polymerization to form filamentous nanostructures of advantageous properties. To achieve these goals, we create fusion constructs of various proteins with the polymerizable protein flagellin, the main component of bacterial flagellar filaments. Our results demonstrate that polymerization ability can be introduced into enzymes, reporter proteins or binding domains, and building blocks for rationally designed assembly of filamentous nanostructures can be created. Multifunctional filaments obtained by directed co-polymerization of flagellin-based fusion constructs with favorable enzymatic or molecular recognition properties offer potential applications in nanosensorics, nanomedicine or bio-nanotechnology.
