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.
Welcome to Master's student Yimin Sun! She will be working on developing cryptic materials based on design rules that we have learned from complex coacervation.
Welcome to Nicholas Bryant, a Master's student who will be working on a jointly advised project on complex coacervates for coatings and films with Prof. John Klier.
Welcome to Ali Ahmad Jallow, a sophomore who will be working with Zoey Meng to study the incorporation of cargo molecules into complex coacervates and polyelectrolyte complexes.
Welcome to Dr. Mingjun Zhou who is joining the Perry and Santore labs to develop particle-polymer complex coacervates.
Congratulations to Matt Labbe, who had a tremendous summer internship at HP in Corvallis, OR and has accepted an offer of a full-time position as a process engineer on the R&D team working on the fluidic flow layers of silicon wafer chips for ink cartridges!
Prof. Perry spoke on the topic of Using Sequence and Chemistry to Engineer Complex Coacervate Materials at a special symposium on Recent Developments in Biomaterials at the Fall ACS Meeting in San Diego, CA.
Congratulations to Li-Wei Chang on the publication of his new paper, done in collaboration with Prof. Charles Sing's lab!
"Sequence-Dependent Self-Coacervation in High Charge-Density Polyampholytes," J. Madinya, L.W. Chang, S.L. Perry, C.E. Sing, Mol. Syst. Des. Eng., (2019), (in press). [PDF]
Congratulations to Xi "Ryan" Hao and Shuo Sui on the publication of their collaborative paper with the Schiffman Lab looking at the antifouling properties of polyelectrolyte complex films!
"Bacteria-resistant, Transparent, Free-standing Films Prepared from Complex Coacervates," I.S. Kurtz, S. Sui, X. Hao, M. Huang, S.L. Perry, J.D. Schiffman, ACS Applied Bio Materials, (2019), 2, 3926-3933. [PDF]
Prof. Perry was invited to join the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal Soft Matter.
Bryanne Zonghi will be joining Bristol Myers Squibb as an Associate Research Scientist!
Congratulations to Sarthak Saha on being awarded a Chemistry-Biology Interface UMass Trainee Fellowship!
Congratulations to Elizabeth Voke on being awarded a Commonwealth Honors College Research Grant to support her thesis work!
Congratulations to Abbie Cabral on being awarded a Commonwealth Honors College Research Assistant Fellowship!
Congratulations to Josh McGee on being awarded a Commonwealth Honors College Research Assistant Fellowship!
Congratulations to Hansen Tjo on being awarded a Commonwealth Honors College Research Assistant Fellowship!
Congratulations to Shari Traiger on being awarded a Commonwealth Honors College Research Assistant Fellowship!
Our new paper onDesigning Electrostatic Interactions via Polyelectrolyte Monomer Sequence was highlighted by the UMass Amherst News Bureau!!
Congratulations to Savannah Szemethy on having accepted a position as a research associate on the bioreactor team with Platelet Biogenesis!
After graduation, Caleb Boucher will be joining the Southwest Conservation Corps as a Trail Crew Member. Congrats!
Congratulations to Josh McGee on having been awarded a UMass Amherst Life Sciences Alumni Network Scholarship!
Check out this news story highlighting Bryan Chua as one of two chemical engineers named as 21st Century Leaders!
Welcome to Giuseppe Santaniello, a rising sophomore in Biochemistry who will be working in collaboration with Prof. Anne Gershenson from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology on a project to use microfluidics to study protein folding diseases.
Svilen Kolev will be joining the PhD program in Chemical Engineering at Northeasthern this fall!
Li-Wei's latest collaborative paper looking at the effects of more complex charge patterning on coacervation was just published in ACS Central Science! This is such a great collaboration with Prof. Charles Sing's Lab!
"Designing Electrostatic Interactions via Polyelectrolyte Monomer Sequence," T.K. Lytle, L.W. Chang, N. Markiewicz, S.L. Perry, C.E. Sing, ACS Central Science, (2019), 5, 709-718. [PDF]
Congratulations to Zoey Meng for winning the Maden Travel Award for best poster at the Graduate Recruiting Weekend!
Prof. Perry also presented research and concepts related to Microfluidics and/or Microgravity for Protein Crystallization in a symposium on Emerging Frontiers in Biotechnology at the Spring ACS Meeting.
Congratulations to Whitney Blocher McTigue! She will receive the Eldridge Award for having the highest ranked G.R.A.S.S. talk in her class.
Prof. Perry spoke on the topic of Sequence Controlled Polypeptides: Understanding Biology via Coacervation at a special symposium on Molecular Engineering of Peptide Assemblies at the Spring ACS Meeting.
Congratulations to Josh McGee and Jake Brandner for placing 2nd in the 2019 Northeast Regional AIChE Conference Poster Competition!
Congratulations to Juanfeng Sun for an outstanding defense of his MS thesis on Electrospinning Nanofibers from Chitosan-Hyaluronic Acid Complex Coacervates! Sun is also the first student to graduate from the new Chemical Engineering MS Program!
Bryan Chua will be joining Bristol Myers Squibb as an Assistant Automation Engineer after graduation!
Matt Labbe will be working this summer with the development team at HP on photolithography for inkjet technology in Corvallis, OR!
Prof. Perry has been named an Adjunct Faculty member of the Department of Polymer Science & Engineering.
Congratulations to Hansen Tjo, who was accepted into the Materials Research REU Program at Columbia University!
Congratulations to Elizabeth Voke, who was accepted into the Amgen Scholars Summer Research Program at UC Berkeley!
Prof. Perry visited her alma mater to present seminar on Molecular Engineering of Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials.
Prof. Perry spoke as part of an invited focus session on Using Polymer Sequence to Control Material Properties at the APS March Meeting.
Yalin Liu gave a fantastic talk at the APS March Meeting on Polymer Chemistry and the Effect on the Linear Viscoelasticity on Polyelectrolyte Complexes.
Congratulations to Shuo Sui on winning a poster prize at the 2019 BioXFEL Conference in San Diego, CA!
Congratulations to Robin Zollner! Robin will be joining Boeing in Charleston, SC as a Materials, Process, and Physics Engineer. Good luck in your future endeavors!
Looking forward to Whitney Blocher McTigue's upcoming seminar on Complex Coacervation as a Novel Method for Thermal Stabilization of Biomacromolecules in the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences at UMass, Wednesday 1/30 at 4pm in 221 ISB!
Congratulations to Kush Basu! After working in the Perry lab for nearly four years, Kush will be joining Saint-Gobain as a Research Associate. Good luck in your future endeavors!
A review article by Prof. Perry was just published online!
S.L. Perry, "Phase Separation: Bridging Polymer Physics and Biology," Current Opinion in Colloid and Interface Science, (2019), 39, 86-97. [PDF]
Very excited about our new grant with Prof. Rachel Walker from the Oncology Nursing Society to create a point-of-care device for the detection of chemotherapeutics!
Congratulations to Sarthak Saha on the recent publication of his review article on Keratin from his time as a Master's student!
S. Saha, M. Arshad, M. Zubair, A. Ullah, "Keratin as a Biopolymer," in S. Sharma, A. Kumar (eds.) Springer Series on Polymer and Composite Materials, (2019). [PDF]
Prof. Perry was invited to join the Editorial Advisory Board for ACS Macro Letters.
