As one of the fastest growing fields of research in the 21st century, nanotechnology is sure to have an enormous impact on many aspects of our lives. Nanostructure Design: Methods and Protocols serves as a major reference for theoretical and experimental considerations in the design of biological and bio-inspired building blocks, the physical characterization of the formed structures, and the development of their technical applications. The chapters contributed by leading experts are divided into two sections, the first of which covers experimental aspects of nanostructure design and the second delves into computational methods. As a volume of the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, this collection pulls together cutting-edge protocols, written in a step-by-step, readily reproducible format certain to guide researchers to the desired results. Comprehensive and essential, Nanostructure Design: Methods and Protocols uses biological principles and vehicles on design to aid scientists in the great challenges still ahead.

Part I: Experimental approach Chapter 1: Molecular Design of Performance Proteins with Repetitive Sequences: Recombinant Flagelliform Spider Silk as Basis for Biomaterials Charlotte Vendrely, Christian Ackerschott, Lin Römer and Thomas Scheibel Chapter 2: Creation of hybrid nanorods from sequences of natural trimeric fibrous proteins by use of the fibritin trimerization motif Katerina Papanikolopoulou, Mark J. van Raaij and Anna Mitraki Chapter 3: The Leucine Zipper as a Building Block for Self-assembled Protein Fibers Maxim G Ryadnov, David Papapostolou and Derek N Woolfson Chapter 4: Bioimimetic Synthesis of Bimorphic Nanostructures Joseph M. Slocik and Rajesh R. Naik Chapter 5: Synthesis and Primary Characterization of Self-Assembled Peptide-based Hydrogels Radhika P. Nagarkar and Joel P. Schneider Chapter 6: Periodic Assembly of Nanospecies on Repetitive DNA Sequences Generated on Gold Nanoparticles by Rolling Circle Amplification Weian Zhao, Michael A. Brook and Yingfu Li Part II: Computational approach Chapter 7: Protocols for the In silico Design of RNA Nanostructures Bruce A. Shapiro, Eckart Bindewald, Wojciech Kasprzak, and Yaroslava Yingling Chapter 8: Self-Assembly of Fused Homo-Oligomers to Create Nanotubes Idit Buch, Chung-Jung Tsai, Haim J. Wolfson, and Ruth Nussinov Chapter 9: Computational Methods in Nanostructure Design: Replica Exchange Simulations of Self-Assembling Peptides Giovanni Bellesia, Sotiria Lampoudi and Joan-Emma Shea Chapter 10: Modeling Amyloid Fibril Formation: A Free-Energy Approach Maarten G. Wolf, Jeroen van Gestel and Simon W. de Leeuw Chapter 11: Computer Modeling in Biotechnology, a Partner in Development Aleksei Aksimentiev, Robert Brunner, Jordi Cohen, Jeffrey Comer, Eduardo Cruz-Chu, David Hardy, Aruna Rajan, Amy Shih, Grigori Sigalov, Ying Yin, and Klaus Schulten Chapter 12: What Can We Learn from Highly-Connected ß-Rich Structures for Structural Interface Design? Ugur Emekli, K. Gunasekaran, Ruth Nussinov and Turkan Haliloglu