Designing Functional Peptide Interfaces: From Enamel-Inspired Materials to Antifreeze Activity

Peptides provide a versatile platform for designing functional materials, combining chemical programmability with the ability to assemble, bind, and adapt at complex interfaces. Using molecular simulation, machine learning, and structure prediction, we explore how sequence encodes material function across systems ranging from enamel-inspired biomolecular assemblies to antifreeze peptides interacting with ice–water interfaces. These studies highlight both the challenges and opportunities in designing peptides as active mediators of interfacial organisation, and point toward broader principles for engineering function at highly structured interfaces, from biological minerals to frozen water.