10/21/2025
By Kwok Fan Chow
The Kennedy College of Science, Department of Chemistry, invites you to attend a Ph.D. research proposal defense by Tannaz Farrokhi titled “Creating Responsive Biomaterials Using Designed Peptides.”
Degree: Doctoral
Location: Olney, Room 518
Date: Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025
Time: 10 a.m.
Committee:
- Michael B. Ross, Department of Chemistry, UMass Lowell
- Matthew J. Gage, Department of Chemistry, UMass Lowell
- James F. Reuther, Department of Chemistry, UMass Lowell
- Marina Ruths, Department of Chemistry, UMass Lowell
Abstract:
Peptides are ideal ligands for controlling the interactions between nanoparticles, and the systematic design of peptides will provide a robust platform for precisely directing the arrangement of the nanoparticles in response to environmental changes. In this research, nanoparticles functionalized with specific peptide sequences derived from a blood-clotting factor were developed to address internal bleeding by interacting with platelets. In other work, CO2-driven nanoparticle assembly mediated by sequence-specific peptide design is achieved in solution and hydrogels at the centimeter scale, where embedded peptide-conjugated nanoparticles rearrange and change color upon CO2 exposure. Future work will involve adjusting crosslinking density of the hydrogel to find the optimized balance between mechanical strength and stimuli sensitivity of the system. Studying nanoparticle size and crowding will reveal how curvature and spatial constraints affect intrinsically disordered peptides (IDPs) mediated nanoparticles assembly under pH change or gas exposure.
All interested students and faculty members are invited to attend.