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 or the continuous manufacture of RNA. At the same time, 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 Greg Donovan, former group alumnus on having defended his PhD dissertation on "Biosensor-enabled High-Throughput Analysis of Terpene Synthesis," work that he in the lab of Prof. Jerome Fox in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder!
Congratulations to Dr. Xianci Zeng for successfully defending her PhD dissertation on Bioinspired Strategies for the Encapsulation and Stabilization of Biomacromolecules! Dr. Zeng is the 10th PhD student to graduate from the Perry Lab!
Congratulations to Adhithi Varadarajan who will be joining the PM Group as a Process Engineer after graduation!
Welcome back to Dr. Jussara Alves Penido who is now joining our group as a postdoctoral researcher!
Congratulations to Isaac Ramírez Marrero on the publication of his review article on design rules in polyelectrolyte complexes!
"Fundamentals and Design Rules of Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials: A Comprehensive Review," I.A. Ramírez Marrero, S.L. Perry, Chemical Reviews, (2026) (accepted). [PDF]
Congratulations to Kiersten O'Connell who will studying abroad in Beijing, China this fall!
Welcome to Maille O'Neil, sophomore Chemical Engineering student who is joining the lab to work on polymer-surfactant complex coacervates.
Adhithi Varadarajan presented her honors thesis research on Chymotrypsin Activity in Peptide-Based Coacervates at the Massachusetts Undergraduate Research Conference!
Mazin Hussein presented his honors thesis research on Design and Fabrication of an Electrochemical Cell for X-ray Synchrotron Studies at the Massachusetts Undergraduate Research Conference!
Rayyan Khan presented his research on Investigating the Effects of Salt Concentration and pH on Biopolymer Coacervation at the Massachusetts Undergraduate Research Conference!
Welcome to Jonas Theis, a first-year Chemical Engineering student who is joining the lab to work on the encpasulation and stabilization of biomacromolecules in complex coacervates.
Congratulations to Mayayi Izzo on having been awarded a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!
Congratulations to Logan Chen on having been awarded honorable mention in the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship competition!
Congratulations to Logan Chen, Sarthak Saha, and all of our collaborators on the publication of our new paper that uses electrically-actuated valves to facilitate sample preparation for protein crystallography!
"LEGO-Inspired Electrically-Actuated Microfluidics for On-Chip Protein Crystallization and In-Situ X-ray Crystallography," S. Saha, L. Chen, G. Budziszewski, S. Koprek, K. Seifert, A.E. Cohen, S. Russi, S.E.J. Bowman, S.L. Perry, Lab on a Chip, (2026) (accepted). [PDF]
Welcome to Gabriel Stevens, a sophomore in Chemical Engineering who is joining the lab to work on the encpasulation and stabilization of biomacromolecules in complex coacervates.
Congratulations to Faviola Villariny-Rosado on having passed her prospectus! She is now an official PhD Candidate!
Congratulations to Mayayi Izzo, who will be joining the PhD program in Chemical Engineering at Vanderbilt University in the fall!
Congratulations to Arjun Iyer, who will be joining the PhD program in Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia in the fall!
Congratulations to Isaac Ramírez Marrero, Emily Ng, and all of our collaborators on the publication of our new paper on the effects of copolymer chemistry on the glass transitions in polyelectrolyte complexes!
"Effect of Copolymer Chemistry on the Humidity- and Temperature-Dependent Mechanical Properties and Structure of Polyelectrolyte Complexes," I.A. Ramírez Marrero, E. Ng, N. Kaiser, B. von Vacano, R. Konradi, A.J. Crosby, S.L. Perry, Macromolecules, 2026, (accepted). [PDF]
Prof. Perry gave an invited talk on Glass Transitions in Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials at the APS Global Physics Summit in Denver, CO.
Congratulations to Diwakaran Rathinam Palaniswamy on having been awarded 2nd place for his GRASS talk on Microfluidic Platform for On-Demand Synthesis of Ultrapure RNA with Site-Specific Modifications at the Inaugural Chemical Engineering Research Day!
Dr. Abhik Manna presented a poster on Microfluidic System for Site-specific Labelling of RNA at the Inaugural Chemical Engineering Research Day.
Manu Menezes and Dr. Alaleh Vaghef Koodehi presented a poster on Towards Scalable RNA Purification Using Electrokinetic Microfluidics at the Inaugural Chemical Engineering Research Day.
Faviola Villariny-Rosado presented a poster on Exploring the Electrochemical Properties of Polyelectrolyte Complexes at the Inaugural Chemical Engineering Research Day.
Prof. Perry gave a seminar on Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials in the Department of Chemistry at Georgia State University.
Faviola Villariny-Rosado presented a poster on Exploring the Electrochemical Properties of Polyelectrolyte Complexes at the Daniel J. Riccio Jr. College of Engineering Graduate Research Symposium.
Congratulations to Isaac Ramírez Marrero, Louisa Coughlin, Emily Ng, and all of our collaborators on the publication of our new paper on the effects of polymer chain length, charged group, and backbone chemistry on the glass transitions in polyelectrolyte complexes!
"Developing Design Rules for Polyelectrolyte Complex Materials: Role of Polyelectrolyte Length, Charged Group, and Backbone," I.A. Ramírez Marrero, R. Ghosh, L.M. Coughlin, W.W. Wong, E. Ng, E. Kellner, M. Redder, N. Kaiser, B. von Vacano, R. Konradi, E.B. Coughlin, S.L. Perry, Macromolecules, (2026), 59(8), 5017-5030. [PDF]
Welcome back to Dr. Júlia Bonesso Sabadini who is now joining our group as a postdoctoral researcher!
Congratulations to Dr. Sarthak Saha on being awarded the 2024 Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Best Dissertation Award!
Congratulations to Arvind Sathyavageeswaran, Mayayi Izzo, Júlia Bonesso Sabadini, Jacob Belden and Umme Habeeba on the publication of their new paper on the effects of peptide sequence on the incorporation of proteins into complex coacervates!
"Tuning Protein Uptake through Charge and Hydrophobicity in Peptide-Based Complex Coacervates," A. Sathyavageeswaran, M. Izzo, J. Bonesso Sabadini, U. Habeeba, J.T. Belden, S.L. Perry, Biomacromolecules, (2026), 27(4), 2795-2806. [PDF]
Congratulations to Xi (Ryan) Hao, who defended his PhD in Macromolecular Science and Engineering from Virginia Tech in September 2025 and just started a position as an industrial engineer at Uniquetex!
Congratulations to Kiersten O'Connell who will be participating in a co-op with Abbvie this spring/summer!
Congratulations to Mingjun Zhou and Nick Holmlund on the publication of their new paper on forming complex coacervates using brushy nanoparticles!
"Complex Coacervates of Linear Polymers and Polymer-Grafted Nanoparticles," M. Zhou, N. Homlund, S.L. Perry, M. Santore, Macromolecules, (2026), 59(3), 1679-1693. [PDF]
Welcome to Allison Barrett, a first year undergraduate in Chemical Engineering who is joining us to study the effect of complex coacervation on enzyme activity!
Congratulations to Jussara and Adhithi on the publication of their new paper on using complex coacervates to stabilize enzymes for use in organic solvent!
"Complex Coacervate Emulsions as a Strategy to Stabilize Enzymes for Catalysis in Organic Solvents," J.A. Penido, S.P. Le, A. Varadarajan, S. Thayumanavan, S.L. Perry, W. Loh, ACS Macro Letters (2026), 15(1), 143-150. [PDF]
Congratulations to Dr. Jussara Alves Penido on successfully defending her PhD dissertation on Expanding the Domain of Polymer Coacervates: Multiphase Systems and Coacervates in Organic Solvents!
Prof. Perry gave an invited talk on Design Rules for Immobilizing Enzymes in Complex Coacervate Droplets for Catalysis in Organic Solvents at the MRS Meeting.
Congratulations to Ethan Rivers, on joining the lab of Prof. Piyush Jain in Chemical Engineering at the University of Florida for his PhD research!
Dr. Alaleh Vaghef-Koodehi presented a poster on Electrokinetic Microfluidic Platform for RNA Purification as part of the Center for Bioactive Delivery Research Symposium.
Dr. Abhik Manna presented a poster on Microfluidic System for Site-specific Labelling of RNA as part of the Center for Bioactive Delivery Research Symposium.
Xianci Zeng presented a poster on Exploring the Mutual Effects of Excipient and Proteins in Complex Coacervation as part of the Center for Bioactive Delivery Research Symposium.
Check out this UMass Engineering News Story about Faviola Villariny-Rosado's WIC Travel Award to attend the AIChE Annual Meeting.
Check out this paper summary by the American Peptide Society on our recent work on sequence and hydrophobicity in complex coacervates!
Check out this UMass Engineering News Story about Vaishnavi Mahankal's best poster award from the Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference.
Congratulations to Diwakaran Rathinam Palaniswamy on having been awarded the Eldridge Teaching Assistant Award for his work in CHEM-ENG 535 Microfluidics and Microscale Analysis in Materials and Biology!
Faviola Villariny-Rosado gave both a poster and a talk on Exploring the Electrochemical Properties of Polyelectrolyte Complexes at the AIChE Annual Meeting.
Welcome to Anna Clara Drumond Vilas Boas, a PhD student from PSE who is joining the group to investigate the effect of polymer sequence on polymer-surfactant complex coacervates.
Welcome to Luana Marques Ferreira, a PhD student from PSE who is joining the group to investigate the effect of polymer sequence on polymer-lipid polyelectrolyte complexes for use in separation membranes.
Welcome to Nikhil Mathew Koshy, who is joining the group to investigate the immunogenicity of peptide-based complex coacervates in collaboration with Prof. Ashish Kulkarni.
Prof. Perry gave an invited talk on Thermodynamics and Molecular Engineering of Complex Coacervates at the AIChE Annual Meeting.
Prof. Perry presented on Engineering Peptide-Protein Complex Coacervates: The Interplay Between Sequence, Chemistry, and Encapsulation at the AIChE Annual Meeting.
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