We explored the possibility of generating nonpoisonous, renewable, low cost and a completely biodegradable photosensitizer for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) as an alternative to synthetic molecules that involve expensive, time-consuming tedious synthesis and purification procedures. Several natural dyes from plants and microbes had successfully been demonstrated as photosensitizers to develop biosensitized solar cells (BSSCs). The objective of this work is to develop a next generation cleaner sensitizer for BSSC using a green fluorescent protein (GFP) and its designer variant (GFPdopa) through an expanding genetic code approach. The designer protein showed higher adsorption with TiO2 surface through oriented immobilization. The nanostructured layer formed by GFPdopa with TiO2 resulted in 0.94% level of photon conversion efficiency with open circuit voltage of 0.60 V, short circuit current of 1.75 mA/cm2 and fill factor of 0.88. It is one of the better energy conversion efficiencies obtained for BSSC when compared to with earlier reported sensitizers generated through protein and chemical complex synergism. From the results obtained, it is suggested that designer fluorescent itself can generate similar photoconversion efficiency and also could serve as an environmental friendly photosensitizer. The research and efficiency level of BSSC is in the early stages, and our proof of principle opens a new avenue to synthesize biologically designer sensitizers for BSSC. It also could be widely applied to other proteins to develop efficient sensitizers for BSSC with a green approach.

We developed an accelerated strain‐promoted oxidation‐controlled cyclooctyne‐1,2‐quinone cycloaddition (SPOCQ) for protein modification. Here, dopaquinone was generated using potassium nitrosodisulfonate (PTN) in a reaction that is six orders of magnitude faster than the enzymatic one. The dopaquinone generated then reacts with bicyclononyne (BCN) derivatives in the bioconjugation. The PTN yields a single product with defined stereochemistry and temporally controlled conjugation with BCN. The feasibility of this bioconjugation was demonstrated with different proteins. Cell labeling was explored by conjugating annexin‐dibenzocyclooctyne‐PEG4‐fluor545 through the SPOCQ approach for the detection of apoptosis in HeLa cells.

Collagen occurs in nature with a dedicated triple helix structure and is the most preferred biomaterial in commercialized medical products. Recombinant collagen emerge as sustainable alternate source that overcomes existing demerits.

Collagen plays a critical role in the structural design of the extracellular matrix (ECM) and cell signaling in mammals, which makes it one of the most promising biomaterials with versatile applications.

The present work reports a new route to prepare “smart biomaterial” by mimicking long-acting cellular growth factor showed enhanced cell-material interactions by promoting cell proliferation and angiogenesis. For that reactive...

We evolved a next-generation novel congener biocatalyst by combining computational and xenobiological approaches for leather processing.

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