Application of antifreeze proteins and mimetic peptides in anti-icing surface coating

Uncontrolled icing of surfaces can cause catastrophic impacts on ground and air transportation, utility networks, and communication transmissions throughout civilian and military sectors. The proposed project aims to achieve more profound understanding and control of the icing process via development of new protein-conjugated hybrid materials. The proposed research is highly multidisciplinary and will benefit from the synergy of investigators. Antifreeze proteins (AFPs) are ice-binding proteins produced in certain fish, insects, bacteria, and plants that live in cold climates and contribute to their freeze resistance. AFPs irreversibly bind to the surface of ice crystals preventing their growth and inhibiting ice recrystallization during temperature fluctuations (i.e. restructuring of small crystals into large lattices). AFPs have the unique property of depressing the freezing point of water without significantly altering the melting point, known as thermal hysteresis. AFPs retain their function when conjugated to polymers or surfaces, and we hypothesize that the incorporation of AFPs and antifreeze peptides onto a solid matrix (glass or polymer) will enhance antifreeze activity and protein stability. The results of this study will contribute to a better fundamental understanding of ice-binding and ice-growth inhibition by hybrid materials and lead to the future rational design of new cryo-functional materials. The multidisciplinary team is uniquely qualified to carry out the proposed research due to their expertise in structural biology, biochemistry, polymer and peptide synthesis, surface chemistry, spectroscopy, microscopy, as well as their long research interest in studying the freezing process, ice nucleation, antifreeze activity, and the interaction of water with small molecules or macromolecules. AFPs will be produced using molecular biology techniques while short peptides and functionalized polymers will be synthesized by reaction engineering techniques. AFP and polymer structure will be characterized by NMR spectroscopy. Functionalized tailor-made polymers with multiple copies of grafted AFPs and peptides will be characterized by differential scanning calorimetry for thermal hysteresis activity of AFP-polymer conjugates and the interaction of water with AFPs. The antifreeze properties of the same AFPs and peptides anchored to glass and metal surfaces will also be measured and contrasted to their performance un-anchored in solution. Low temperature microscopy, ice nucleation studies, and ice adhesion measurements to the hybrid AFP or peptide conjugates will be measured in the Ice Adhesion Facility at CRREL, allowing us to gain insight into field performance of these AFP based hybrid materials both in space and terrestrial applications. We propose to characterize two AFPs (e.g. desert beetle and a plant), which most likely act by a different mechanism, which we anticipate will lead to a better fundamental understanding of the underlying mechanism of antifreeze activity. The proposed research is well in line with the missions of NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD), the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD), and the Glenn Research Center (GRC). The project will make significant and direct contributions to the development of anti-icing technology with applicability in ground transportation and aviation, planetary exploration, and maintenance of instrumentation on the space station. Broader potential applications of AFPs include cryoprotection for improving the quality of freeze-dried (or frozen) foods, medications, biological materials (e.g. blood), and low temperature preservation of humans during long space travels. Microscopic and higher organisms genetically engineered with AFPs become cold resistant, which would optimize their survival in harsh conditions (e.g. ice caps of Mars) if humans were to colonize another planet.

This is a mature technology (TRL 7+) — the realistic path in is usually NASA's Technology Transfer Program: licensing an existing NASA patent, or a Space Act Agreement to use NASA facilities/expertise directly. NASA also runs a startup licensing program with no upfront fee for companies formed to commercialize a specific NASA technology.

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