Bottom-up self-assembly techniques are a powerful method of building nanoscale structures in an energy efficient and cost effective manner. The use of biological templates, such as proteins, takes advantage of the monodispersity and precision of naturally evolved systems to produce highly organized assemblies of small molecules and nanoparticles. Here we describe a method whereby arginine residues on a viral coat protein (Tobacco Mosaic Virus) are targeted by bis(p-sulfonatophenyl)phenylphosphine (BSPP)-passivated gold nanoparticles with high specificity to create 22 nm rings.