Perry Research Group

Welcome to the Perry Lab

Perry Research Group

Research in the Perry laboratory utilizes self-assembly, molecular design, and microfluidic technologies to generate biomimetic microenvironments to study and enable the implementation of biomolecules to address real-world challenges. Individually, microfluidics represents an enabling technology for high throughput analyses such as the time-resolved structural analysis of enzyme dynamics, while control over molecular interactions in self-assembling polyelectrolyte systems can be used to examine the interplay between biomolecules and the environment. Together, these capabilities can be coupled to generate artificial organelles for use in applications ranging from biochemistry to bioenergetics, biocatalysis, and biomedicine. Furthermore, this work has tremendous pedagogical potential to inspire students to work at the intersection of chemistry, biology, and engineering.

News and Announcements

March 26th, 2024
Emily Ng

Congratulations to Emily Ng, who will be interning this summer at Cabot Corporation!

March 18th, 2024
Mazin Hussein

Welcome to Mazin Hussein, a sophomore in Chemical Engineering who will be working on droplet microfluidics to study complex coacervate phase behavior.

March 14th, 2024
Isaac Ramírez Marrero

Isaac presented his work on Sustainable Polymeric Coatings: Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials at the BASF NORA Spring Review Meeting.

March 7th, 2024
Arvind Sathyavageeswaran

Arvind presented his research on Designing Sequence-defined Complex Coacervates for Protein and Virus Encapsulation at the APS March Meeting!

March 7th, 2024
Jussara Alves Penido

Jussara presented her research on Nano and Micro Domains of Complex Coacervates in Organic Solvents to Encapsulate Enzymes at the APS March Meeting!

March 7th, 2024
Isaac Ramírez Marrero

Isaac presented his work on Identifying The Glass Transitions and Material Properties of Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials at the APS March Meeting.

March 6th, 2024
Dr. Sarthak Saha

Sarthak presented a poster on Microfluidic Platforms for Counter-Diffusive Protein Crystallization and Room Temperature Crystallography at the BioXFEL Meeting.

March 6th, 2024
Baktha Kannadasan

Baktha presented his very first microfluidics poster on Polymer-Based Microfluidic Chips for Time-Resolved Serial Crystallography at the BioXFEL Meeting.

March 5th, 2024
Prof. Charles Sing

The session honoring our amazing collaborator Prof. Charles Sing for having been awarded the 2024 John H. Dillon Medal at the APS March Meeting was fantastic!

March 5th, 2024
Prof. Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry gave an invited talk on Designing Peptide-based Complex Coacervates for Protein and Virus Encapsulation as part of the Dillon Medal Symposium at the APS March Meeting.

March 5th, 2024
Prof. Zhen-Gang Wang

The session honoring Prof. Zhen-Gang Wang for having been awarded the 2024 Polymer Physics Prize at the APS March Meeting was amazing!

March 5th, 2024
Prof. Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry gave an invited talk on Decoupling the Effects of Charge Density and Hydrophobicity on the Phase Behavior and Viscoelasticity of Complex Coacervates as part of the Polymer Physics Prize Symposium at the APS March Meeting.

February 26th, 2024
Dr. Pankaj Kumar Pandey

Congratulations to group alumnus Pankaj Kumar Pandey, who just accepted an offer for a postdoctoral research position at the University of Naples Federico II!

February 26th, 2024
Arvind Sathyavageeswaran

Congratulations to Arvind, who will be participating in an internship at Nestlé later this year!

February 20th, 2024
NIH Logo

Check out this UMass Amherst News Story highlighting the recent three-year, $936,000 NIH R01 grant that we received to deveop next-generation platforms for time-resolved crystallography!

February 9th, 2024
Elena Kim

Welcome to Elena Kim, a sophomore in Biomedical Engineering who will be working on microfluidics for mRNA manufacturing.

February 7th, 2024
Umme Habeeba

Congratulations to Habeeba, who will be joining the MS program at KAUST University this fall!

February 1st, 2024
Yaozu Chen

Yaozu has accepted an offer to participate in an internship at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory in Chicagoland this summer!

January 31st, 2024
Arvind Sathyavageeswaran

Congratulations to Arvind on being awarded the Eldridge Teaching Assistant Award for Fall 2023!

January 22nd, 2024
2024 Acc Chem Res

Congratulations to Arvind and Júlia on the puplication of their review article!

"Self-Assembling Polypeptides in Complex Coacervation," A. Sathyavageeswaran, J. Bonesso Sabadini, S.L. Perry, Accounts of Chemical Research, (2024), 57(3), 386-398. [PDF]

January 19th, 2024
Júlia Bonesso Sabadini

Congratulations to Júlia on the puplication of her very first first-author paper!

"Assessing the Structure and Equilibrium Conditions of Complex Coacervate Core Micelles by Varying Their Shell Composition and Medium Ionic Strength," J. Bonesso Sabadini, C.L.P. Oliveira, W. Loh, Langmuir, (2024) (in press). [PDF]

January 14th, 2024
Faviola Villariny-Rosado

Congratulations to Faviola Villariny-Rosado, who just accepted an offer to participate in an internship program at florrent Inc. this spring!

January 11th, 2023
Khiem Le

Congratulations to Khiem Le, who will be interning at OceanSpray this summer!

January 9th, 2024
Arvind Sathyavageeswaran

Arvind gave a fabulous G.R.A.S.S. talk today on the Molecular Design of Peptide-based Complex Coacervates!

January 1st, 2024
New Year's LlabLlama

Happy New Year!!! #LlabLlama

December 20th, 2023
Faviola Villariny-Rosado

Welcome to Faviola Villariny-Rosado, who is joining our lab as a 3rd year PhD student to work on complex coacervate materials!

December 18th, 2023
Isaac Ramírez Marrero

Congratulations to Isaac Ramírez Marrero on having been awarded a Carl Storm Underrepresented Minority Fellowship to support his participation in the 2024 GRC on Bioinspired Materials!

December 15th, 2023
2023 Virus Paper

Congratulations to Arvind and Xianci on the puplication of their first paper, an awesome collaborative effort with the Heldt lab at Michigan Tech!

"Design Rules for the Sequestration of Viruses into Polypeptide Complex Coacervates," P.U. Joshi, C. Decker, X. Zeng, A. Sathyavageeswaran, S.L. Perry, C.L. Heldt, Biomacromolecules, (2024), 25(2), 741-753. [PDF]

December 8th, 2023
Kai Musick

Welcome to Kai Musick, a first year undergraduate who is joining the group to study the structures that form when coacervate droplets evaporate.

December 7th, 2023
Taras Nagornyy

Congratulations to Taras Nagornyy on having been awarded the UMass Amherst Rising Researcher Award!

December 6th, 2023
Sarthak Saha Dissertation Art

Congratulations to Dr. Sarthak Saha for successfully defending his PhD dissertation on Advanced Microfluidics Platforms for Protein Crystallization and X-ray Crystallography!!! Dr. Saha is the sixth PhD student to graduate from the Perry lab!

December 4th, 2023
Prof. Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry gave a seminar on Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials in the Department of Chemistry at Brandeis University.

November 30th, 2023
Prof. Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry gave a seminar on Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Penn State.

November 27th, 2023
Bakthavachalam Kannadasan

Welcome to Bakthavachalam Kannadasan, a new PhD student who is joining the group to work on microfluidic platforms for time-resolved protein crystallography!

November 17th, 2023
Prof. Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry was honored to give a student-invited seminar on Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials in the Department of Macromolecular Science & Engineering at Case Western Reserve University.

November 14th, 2023
Prof. Charles Sing

Super congratulations to our amazing collaborator Prof. Charles Sing on having been awarded the 2024 John H. Dillon Medal!

November 12th, 2023
Ethan Eroh

Welcome to Ethan Eroh, a junior who will be joining the lab to develop microfluidic methods to make mRNA!

November 7th, 2023
Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry gave a talk on Identifying the Glass Transitions and Material Properties of Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials at the AIChE Annual Meeting.

November 6th, 2023
Amy Lim

Amy Lim presented a poster on Effects of Copolymer Chemistry on the Formation of Multiphase Complex Coacervates at the AIChE Annual Meeting.

November 6th, 2023
Yaozu Chen

Yaozu Chen presented a poster on Polymer Chemistry Effects on the Mechanics of Polyelectrolyte Complexes at the AIChE Annual Meeting.

November 6th, 2023
Taras Nagornyy

Taras Nagornyy presented a poster on Radical Polymerization of Methacrylate-Based Covalent Adaptable Network with Chain Transfer, work that he did during his summer REU at Delaware at the AIChE Annual Meeting, and was awarded 3rd place!

October 14th, 2023
Khiem Le

Welcome to Khiem Le, a MS student who is joining the lab to work on microfluidic methods for mRNA manufacturing!

See more news from 2023.