Congratulations to Julia Walker for her recent paper entitled "Antibody-Binding, Antifouling Surface Coatings Based on Recombinant Expression of Zwitterionic EK Peptides". While PEG tends to dominate as a biocompatible surface coating, there is often a need for multiple chemical steps for efficient conjugation of the PEG to the surface, and then a biomolecule to the PEG. Furthermore, there is currently limited scope for introducing complex functionality into synthetic polymer coatings (e.g. di- or tri-block copolymers). However, in contrast, peptides have up to 21 chemically unique building blocks which can be arranged into virtually any sequence with monomer level control for expression and purification from bacterial, mammalian, or yeast expression systems. Here we designed and expressed several such molecules, showing that they could attach to surfaces, and then bind IgG in an orientation that could be used to capture target proteins from diluted blood samples. Exciting stuff - what else could we use zwitterionic peptides for??