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

September 14th, 2023
Sarah Perry

Check out this great article announcing the winners of the University of Illinois Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering alumni awards, including Prof. Perry with the 2023 Young Alumni Achievement Award!

September 12th, 2023
Raneem Mokdad

Welcome to Raneem Mokdad, a junior who isjoining the lab to study the effects of hydrogen bonding on complex coacervation!

September 10th, 2023
Adhithi Varadarajan

Welcome to Adhithi Varadarajan, a sophomore who will be joining the lab to study complex coacervate-core micelles in organic solvents!

September 10th, 2023
Jacob Belden

Welcome to Jacob Belden, a junior who will be joining the lab to study protein encapsulation in complex coacervates!

September 10th, 2023
Ethan Rivers

Welcome to Ethan Rivers, a junior who will be joining the lab to multiphase complex coacervates!

September 6th, 2023
Júlia Bonesso Sabadini

Júlia Bonesso Sabadini will be giving a talk on Confined Polyelectrolyte Complexes in Nanometric Domains: Answers that the Continuous Phase can Give about Nanometric Regime at the 37th Conference of the European Colloid and Interface Society in Naples, Italy.

September 4th, 2023
Li-Wei Chang

Congratulations to group alumnus Dr. Li-Wei Chang on having been granted a green card!

August 31st, 2023
Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry gave a talk on Decoupling the Effects of Charge Density and Hydrophobicity on the Phase Behavior and Viscoelasticity of Complex Coacervates at the International Symposium on Polyelectrolytes in Prague, Czechia.

August 30th, 2023
NIH Logo

So excited to announce that our NIH R01 grant on Fixed-Target Platforms for Time-Resolved Crystallography has been funded!!!

August 29th, 2023
Júlia Bonesso Sabadini

Júlia Bonesso Sabadini gave a talk on Can PEO-coacervates micelles undergo structural changes as EO surfactants aggregates? at the International Symposium on Polyelectrolytes in Prague, Czechia.

August 1st, 2023
Dr. Sonu Kizhakkepura

Welcome to Dr. Sonu Kizhakkepura a new joint postdoc with Prof. Craig Martin's lab! Sonu will be working on detection and purification strategies related to microfluidic mRNA manufacturing.

July 30th, 2023
Sarah Perry

The Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign honored Prof. Perry with the 2023 Young Alumni Achievement Award!

June 30th, 2023
Priyanka and Pankaj

Best wishes to Dr. Priyanka Kaushik and Dr. Pankaj Kumar Pandey as they move forward with the next steps in their careers!

June 20th, 2023
Prof. Sarah Perry

Check out this Spotlight article that Prof. Perry wrote highlighting some awesome work by Ting Xu's lab along with a group of great collaborators!.

"Ensembles of Synthetic Polymers Mimic Biological Fluids," S.L. Perry, Trends in Biochemical Sciences, (2023) 48(9), 746-747. [PDF]

June 6th, 2023
Diwakaran Rathinam Palaniswamy

Congratulations to Diwakaran Rathinam Palaniswamy on being awarded a Chemistry-Biology Interface UMass Trainee Fellowship!

June 7th, 2023
Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry gave a talk on Brushy Nanoparticle Complex Coacervates at the 97th ACS Colloid and Surface Science Symposium at NC State.

June 6th, 2023
Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry gave a talk on Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials at the BASF site in Research Triangle Park, NC.

June 5th, 2023
Sarthak Saha

Sarthak Saha presented his research on PDMS-free Microfluidic Devices and Accessible Valving Methods Towards Counter Diffusive Protein Crystallization at the GRC and GRS on the Physics and Chemistry of Microfluidics.

June 5th, 2023
Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry gave a talk on Exploring the Effects of Osmolytes on Complex Coacervation at the 97th ACS Colloid and Surface Science Symposium at NC State.

June 1st, 2023
Sarthak Saha

Congratulations to Sarthak Saha on having been awarded a travel grant through the BioXFEL program to attend the 2023 Gordon Research Conference on Microfluidics!

May 30th, 2023
Hansen Tjo

Congratulations to Hansen Tjo on the publication of his co-first author manuscript investigating the effect of charge density and surfactant structure on complex coacervation! This awesome collaborative work was done jointly with Prof. Charles Sing and his former PhD student Dr. Jason Madinya, and was also supported by Zoey Meng and Isaac Ramírez Marrero.

"Surface Charge Density and Steric Repulsion in Polyelectrolyte-Surfactant Coacervation," J. Madinya, H. Tjo, X. Meng, I.A. Ramírez Marrero, C.E. Sing, S.L. Perry, Macromolecules, (2023), 56(11), 3973-3988. [PDF]

May 22nd, 2023
Timothy Wheeler

Congratulations to Tim Wheeler, who will be participating in the internship program at Plug Power this summer!

May 18th, 2023
Yaozu Chen

Yaozu Chen presented a poster on Polymer Chemistry Effects on the Linear Viscoelasticity of Polyelectrolyte Complexes as part of the Spring Polymer Workshop here at UMass.

May 18th, 2023
Jussara Alves Penido

Jussara Alves Penido presented a poster on her plan to explore PComplex Coacervate Core Micelle in Organic Solvents as part of the Spring Polymer Workshop here at UMass.

May 18th, 2023
Amy Lim

Amy Lim presented a poster on the Effect of Copolymer Chemistry on the Material Properties of Multiphase Complex Coacervates as part of the Spring Polymer Workshop here at UMass.

May 18th, 2023
Isaac Ramírez Marrero

Isaac Ramírez Marrero presented a poster on the Design Rules of Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials as part of the Spring Polymer Workshop here at UMass.

May 18th, 2023
Xianci Zeng

Xianci Zeng presented a poster on Exploring the Effects of Osmolytes on Complex Coacervation as part of the Spring Polymer Workshop here at UMass.

May 18th, 2023
Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry gave a talk on Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials as part of the Spring Polymer Workshop here at UMass.

May 15th, 2023
Taras Nagornyy

Welcome to Taras Nagornyy, a soon to be rising senior who will be joining the lab to study protein encapsulation in complex coacervates!

May 15th, 2023
Umme Habeeba

Congratulations to Umme Habeeba, who will be participating in the internship program at Impact Nano this summer!

May 12th, 2020
Sarthak Saha

Congratulations to Sarthak Saha on winning a departmental PPG Fellowship to support his next semester of research!

April 28th, 2023
Amy Lim

Amy Lim presented her research Investigating the Formation of Multiphase Complex Coacervates at the Massachusetts Undergraduate Research Conference.

April 28th, 2023
Yaozu Chen

Yaozu Chen presented his research on Protein Crystallization in a Low Voltage Microfluidic Device at the Massachusetts Undergraduate Research Conference.

April 24th, 2023
Jussara Alves Penido

Welcome to Jussara Alves Penido, a visiting PhD student from the Institute of Chemistry at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil! Jussara is joining us for a year, and will be studying the encapsulation of proteins into coacervate-core micelles in the context of organic solvents.

April 24th, 2023
Brandon Johnston

Congratulations to group alumnus Brandon Johnston on successfully defending his dissertation work on the Development of Dendritic Polymers as a Modular Drug Delivery Platform for Avascular Tissues as part of Prof. Paula Hammond's group at MIT! Brandon is the very first Perry Lab undergraduate to go on to earn a PhD!

April 6th, 2023
Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry gave a seminar on Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials during a visit to the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Rhode Island.

March 30th, 2023
Isaac Ramírez Marrero

Isaac Ramírez Marrero will be presenting his research on the Effect of Copolymer Chemistry on the Material Properties of Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials at the Spring ACS Meeting in Indianapolis, IN!

March 28th, 2023
Yaozu Chen

Congratulations to Yaozu Chen, who will be participating in the internship program at MacDermid this summer!

March 25th, 2023
Sarthak Saha

Congratulations to Sarthak Saha, who was invited to serve as a discussion leader at the 2023 Physics and Chemistry of Microfluidics Gordon Research Seminar!

March 21st, 2023
Rachel Maher

Congratulations to Rachel Maher, who will be participating a summer REU program on environmental health sciences here at UMass!

March 20th, 2023
Amy Lim

Congratulations to Amy Lim, who will be participating in a sustainability-focused REU program at the University of Louisville this summer!

March 16th, 2023
Alistaire Rauch

Congratulations to Alistaire Rauch, who will be joining the lab of Prof. Joel Collier in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University as a PhD student in the fall!

March 13th, 2023
Sarthak Saha

Congratulations to Sarthak Saha on the publication of his very first first-author paper! X-ray compatible centrifugal microfluidics are pretty awesome.

"Polymer-based Microfluidic Device for On-chip Counter-diffusive Crystallization and In Situ X-ray Crystallography at Room Temperature," S. Saha, C. Özden, A. Samkutty, S. Russi, A. Cohen, M.M. Stratton, S.L. Perry, Lab on a Chip, (2023), 23, 2075-2090. [PDF]

March 6th, 2023
Sarah Perry
February 20th, 2023
Isaac Ramírez Marrero

Congratulations to Isaac Ramírez Marrero on having been awarded an ACS Bridge Travel Award to attend the Spring ACS Meeting in Indianapolis, IN!

February 16th, 2023
Júlia Bonesso Sabadini

We are very sad to bid Júlia Bonesso Sabadini goodbye. It has been great having her as a part of our group for the past year, and we look forward to continuing the collaboration with upon her return to Brazil!

February 14th, 2023
mRNA Manufacture

Very excited to announce the publication of a new patent with our collaborators from Prof. Craig Martin's lab that Shuo Sui and Prof. Perry contributed to!

"Novel Enzymatic Methods to Generate High Yields of Sequence Specific RNA Oligonucleotides with Extreme Precision," C. Martin, E. Cavac, K.H. Malagodapathiranage, S. Sui, S.L. Perry, Y. Gholamalipour, US Patent No. 11,578,348 B2, Feb. 14, 2023.

February 14th, 2023
Xianci Zeng

Xianci Zeng's G.R.A.S.S. Seminar today on Exploring the Effects of Osmolytes on Complex Coacervation is a sweet way to spend your Valentine's Day!

February 11th, 2023
Luke Boudreau

Congratulations to Luke Boudreau who will be starting work next week as a research technician in the lab of Dr. O. Berk Usta at Massachusetts General Hospital!

January 19th, 2023
Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry was elected as one of the next Vice-Chairs for the Gordon Research Conference on Peptide Materials, along with Joel Schneider from the NCI!

January 18th, 2023
Arvind Sathyavageeswaran

Arvind presented a poster on the Molecular Design of Peptide-based Complex Coacervates at the brand new Gordon Research Conference on Peptide Materials.

January 17th, 2023
Sarah Perry

Prof. Perry presented on Peptide Complex Coacervates for Enhancing the Stability of Proteins and Viruses at the brand new Gordon Research Conference on Peptide Materials.

January 6th, 2023
Kat Nilov

Check out this news story in the Boston Globe that talks about the success of the Boys and Girls Club, and highlights our own group alum Kat Nilov!

January 3rd, 2023
Bryan Chua

Congratulations to group alumnus Bryan Chua on his new position as a Senior Automation Engineer I at Biogen!

January 1st, 2023
New Year's LlabLlama

Happy New Year!!! #LlabLlama

See more news from 2022.