Incorporation of Designed Extended Chromophores into Amphiphilic 4-helix Bundle Peptides for Biomolecular Materials

De novo designed peptides, together with synthetic non-biological cofactors, could lead to peptide-based~systems with novel properties not exhibited by biological systems. Extended chromophores can be designed and tailored, with appropriate donors, acceptors and constituents,~to exhibit selected nonlinear optical responses and light-induced electron transport and/or proton~translocation over large distances. Designed extended chromophores can be incorporated into the amphiphilic 4-helix bundle peptides via bis-histidyl ligation. Amphiphilic 4-helix bundle peptide monolayer, both the apo- and holo-form, can be oriented vectorially at the air/water interface. Nanoporous thin films made from diblock copolymers are ideal templates to assemble the artificial proteins with laterally hexagonal order. We will also discuss the efforts on re-designing the artificial proteins and incorporate them into block copolymer based nanoporous templates.