Leah Spangler earns National Science Foundation CAREER award

By David Pulgar
VCU College of Engineering

Biomanufacturing research at Virginia Commonwealth University is getting a boost from the National Science Foundation, which presented Leah Spangler, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, with a CAREER award to develop light-controlled proteins for sustainable biomanufacturing. With more than $550,000 in funding, Spangler will investigate real-time protein synthesis control, enabling the production of inorganic materials through biomineralization at the VCU College of Engineering.

"This award not only drives my research group's progress in this new and exciting direction, it helps me build new outreach and educational programs here at VCU," Spangler said. "Beyond material synthesis, these biomanufacturing applications can be used for pharmaceutical manufacturing as well. The CAREER award is a great honor, and this is one of the most significant grants I have received to date."

Building on Spangler's previous work, the grant supports using protein to synthesize nanomaterials, like semiconductor quantum dots. It also facilitates exploration of new research, like making metal oxide nanoparticles, which is the focus of another grant Spangler received from the U.S. Department of Defense.

Metal sulfides and metal oxides made through biomineralization have applications in optoelectronics, useful in products from TV screens to LEDs. This represents a more sustainable way of producing these base materials, which are typically created by industrial processes like reacting metals with sulfur and roasting/calcination respectively.

"Manufacturing of this sort usually requires high temperatures and pressures, using toxic solvents and specialized equipment. This means the process is expensive and sometimes difficult, or impossible, to scale," Spangler said. "For example, microprocessor fabrication typically uses lithography, where UV light and toxic chemicals are used to create patterns of material on a surface at the nanoscale to make computer chips. One of my goals is to use light-responsive proteins to replace the chemicals and pattern materials on the nanoscale for a more environmentally friendly process."

It sounds like science fiction, but proteins already manufacture the necessary materials to keep us alive. Protein synthesis in a cell is controlled by DNA. Think of proteins like a 3D printer and DNA as code the machine runs on. Carefully designing the DNA code allowed Spangler's research team to create synthetic "de novo" proteins with capabilities ranging from extracting rare-earth elements to making semiconductor materials to continuous manufacturing of Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists like Ozempic and Wegovy. This next stage of research will create a system for controlling these new proteins to make manufacturing more consistent.

Light-activated protein domains are typically used to control, or turn on/off, the process used to make proteins. In this project, Spangler will apply light-activated domains to a new process: the protein-driven synthesis of nanomaterials. These biological switches with sensitivities to specific wavelengths of light will allow researchers to control material synthesis with red, green and near infrared light.

Because biomineralization can be done in water at room temperature, these light-responsive protein domains afford a higher level of control. Manufacturers will be able to deposit materials in specific locations and only expose some of them to light, or they can expose materials to light at different times to start or stop the process. By controlling material synthesis in space and time, the effects can be combined to make heterostructured materials, which are complex, layered materials needed to make high-quality solar cells or electronics.

Student researchers backed by the award will assist Spangler's efforts. A summer training program in biological techniques for community college faculty is also included, providing course curriculum and hands-on learning techniques to professors. It will be developed in collaboration with John Fife, Ph.D., associate professor in the VCU School of Education, and Kendra Brinkley, Ph.D., dean of the School of STEM at Reynolds Community College.

"While proteins can make materials, the final result is often lacking in quality. The final material might need to be one nanometer thick, but the protein cannot be controlled so the material grows beyond specification," Spangler said. "Another situation is needing material to grow in one spot but not another. Light can be the solution to both of these issues. That control of time and space with simple, scalable and sustainable techniques using light can match the capability and quality of more costly traditional material synthesis methods. That's the goal of this grant."

This story was originally published on the College of Engineering website.