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.
Congratulations to Savannah Szemethy on her upcoming summer internship at Nyacol Nano Technologies!
Prof. Perry presented a seminar on Microfluidics for Room Temperature Crystallography seminar today at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute.
Congratulations to Xi (Ryan) Hao!!! Ryan will be joining the Macromolecular Science and Engineering PhD program at Virginia Tech this fall!
My last paper from my postdoc work was just published and highlighted on the journal cover!
"Partitioning and Enhanced Self-Assembly of Actin in Polypeptide Coacervates," P.M. McCall, S. Srivastava, S.L. Perry, D.R. Kovar, M.L. Gardel, M.V. Tirrell, Biophysical Journal, (2018), 114(7), 1636-1645. [PDF]
Congratulations to Brandon Johnston!!! Brandon will be joining the Polymers PhD program at MIT this fall!
Congratulations to Bryanne Zonghi and Elizabeth Voke, both of whom were accepted into the Young Scholars Summer Research Program in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder!
Congratulations to Rebecca Hershman!!! She will be starting in the PhD program in Chemical Engineering at Tufts University this fall!
Congratulations to Tyler Carpenter!!! He has accepted a position with the pharmaceutical company Merck & Co.!
Best wishes to Rachel Brody as she moves on in her academic career! Rachel will be joining the Markstein Lab in Biology to get a jump start on her graduate research.
Prof. Perry presented on Graphene Microfluidics for Room Temperature Crystallography at the 2018 BioXFEL Meeting in New Orleans, LA.
Congratulations to Shuo Sui on the publication of his new paper, which describes the use of graphene-based electrodes to enable electric field-enhanced protein crystallization and in situ X-ray crystallography!
"A Graphene-based Microfluidic Platform for Electro-crystallization and In Situ X-ray Diffraction," S. Sui, Y. Wang, C. Dimitrakopoulos, S.L. Perry, Crystals, 8(2), (2018). [PDF]
Welcome to Devin Rafferty, a sophomore in Chemical Engineering who will be working with Brandon Johnston on the synthesis and study of architectural effects of complex coacervates.
Welcome to Hansen Tjo, a freshman in Chemical Engineering who will be studying complex coacervation in ternary mixtures of macro-ions.
Congratulations to Li-Wei Chang on an excellent job during his prospectus this afternoon!
Congratulations to Whitney Blocher on having been awarded a portion of this year's Eldridge Teaching Assistant Award for her work in ENGIN 110!
Congratulations to Savannah Szemethy on having been awarded a Research Assistant Fellowship from the Commonwealth Honors College!
Congratulations to Bryan Chua on having been awarded both a Research Assistant Fellowship, and an Honors Research Grant from the Commonwealth Honors College!
Shuo Sui gave a fantastic G.R.A.S.S. Seminar today on Graphene-Integrated Microfluidics for Advanced Crystallography.
Check out the UMass news article highlighting Brandon Johnston as one of six 2017-2018 UMass Amherst Rising Researchers!
Prof. Perry will be giving seminar today in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of New Hampshire.