Graduate Program Affiliations

• Immunology Graduate Group

Preceptor

• Cheemeng Tan

Research

My work centers on decoding the molecular interactions that govern how nanoparticles—particularly extracellular vesicles (EVs)—engage with cells. While nanoparticles hold immense promise for targeted drug delivery, our current understanding of how they communicate with biological systems remains rudimentary. Biodistribution, off-target, and even on-target effects remain black boxes at the mechanistic level. To address this, I’m developing MIME (Molecular Interaction MEmory for Nanoparticles), a platform that enables molecular-resolution, proteome-wide mapping of nanoparticle interactions in vivo. MIME uses a modified Sortase A enzyme to covalently tag proteins that nanoparticles directly interact with, allowing for unbiased identification of molecular partners across tissues. MIME essentially provides a "molecular fingerprint" for any given nanoparticle.

I benchmark MIME using synthetic particles generated with MEMPLEX (Membrane Protein Learning and Expression), my lab’s droplet-printing-based and machine learning-driven platform for membrane protein expression. MEMPLEX allows me to generate particles with a single type of membrane protein, to dissect how individual surface proteins contribute to downstream cellular behaviors. By pairing MIME with MEMPLEX, I aim to uncover the molecular rules underlying EV-mediated communication and apply these principles to design nanocarriers that can selectively and predictably engage specific cell types for targeted functions.