Renyu Zheng was named one of three recipients of an “Outstanding Oral Presentation” award at the 11th Annual Peptoid Summit. Zheng, a University of Washington (UW) graduate student mentored by senior research scientist and UW affiliate professor of chemical engineering and chemistry, Chun-Long Chen, was the only non-faculty member to receive the award this year.

His presentation, titled "Self-assembly of short sequence diblock peptoids into nanohelices with tunable supramolecular chirality,” reported the design of a simple peptoid capable of self-assembly into highly ordered helical fibers. The work traced the formation of these nanostructures on an atomistic scale through a combination of experiments and simulations. It also included a systematic investigation of how to manipulate the forces and dynamics involved in self-assembly to control the supramolecular chirality. The fundamental understanding obtained from the peptoid system provides access to a better understanding of how helical structures form.

This work is funded by the Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Science program, as part of the Biomolecular Material Program at PNNL, and as part of the Center for the Science of Synthesis Across Scales, an Energy Frontier Research Center located at UW. Additional support was provided by the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The Peptoid Summit is a gathering of researchers interested in peptoids, a bio-inspired polymer system. The meeting features oral presentations, poster presentations, lightning talks, and more. Although the live section of the conference ran from August 10–12, 2022, all sessions were recorded and are available online until August 2023.