T-cell activation is an essential step of the immune response, yet the cellular and molecular events underlying this complex process are not fully understood. Significantly, a comparative genome-scale transcriptional analysis of two T-cell subsets and the natural-mixed CD3+ population remains unexplored. Using microarrays, we investigated the temporal global transcriptional profile...
Nature has been evolving innovative solutions to complex design challenges for billions of years, the success of which is evidenced by the myriad of life-sustaining systems that operate with unparalleled simplicity, efficiency, and durability. Biomimetic researchers derive inspiration from principles underlying natural phenomena to solve design challenges. This work is...
Granular materials exhibit a wide variety of fascinating physical properties that can be observed both in nature and industry. The goal of this work is to better understand the flow, mixing, and segregation of granular materials in a prototypical system, the rotating tumbler, using numerical modeling, specifically, the Discrete Element...
To increase the butanol titers and selectivity in <em>Clostridium acetobutylicum</em> we replaced the promoter of the alcohol/aldehyde dehydrogenase (<em>aad</em>) gene with the phosphotranbutyrylase (<em>ptb</em>) promoter and combined this with CoAT downregulation to minimize acetone production. This led to early production of high alcohol (butanol plus ethanol) titers and overall solvent...
The adoption of surfactant replacement therapy (SRT) for the treatment of neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (nRDS) is one of the main contributors to the dramatic decline in infant mortality rates observed in the 1980s. Despite the significant efficacy of animal-derived surfactant preparations, there are still some concerns associated with their...
Growing concerns associated with global warming and the depletion of oil reserves have motivated significant research in support of sustainable polymers systems. In this thesis, biobased and biodegradable polymer blends and nanocomposites were created using a novel processing method, solid-state shear pulverization (SSSP). This process utilizes a modified twin-screw extruder...
Granular solids consisting of various particle sizes exhibit the tendency to de-mix, or segregate, when caused to shear by external forces such as gravity. This well-known phenomenon is of special practical interest to many industries involved in the handling and transportation of bulk solids, where segregation can lead to adverse...
The Escherichia coli ribosome is a 2.4 MDa molecular machine that consists of a large subunit and a small subunit, and is the key catalyst in gene expression, responsible for synthesizing proteins from amino acids in a sequence-defined fashion with impressive speed and accuracy. Expanding the repertoire of ribosome substrates...
There is a need for alternative biomanufacturing solutions to produce novel medicines and help solve long-standing issues regarding difficult-to-treat diseases. Cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS) provides scientists with a new paradigm for producing proteins with an unprecedented freedom and control over the biomolecular machinery involved. In this document, I describe my...
Individuals commonly engage in collaborative behavior to more easily produce works of high societal impact. The effect of many individual characteristics such as age or gender on the effectiveness of a team is still unclear. Gender is especially pertinent because many professional settings are still far from gender parity, despite...
Graphene and graphene oxide (GO), a highly oxidized form of graphene, are materials with incredibly interesting chemical and mechanical properties. These materials have high surface areas and electrical properties that can be tuned by reducing the amount of oxygenates on the surface. They have already demonstrated their importance in the...
Supported metal oxides are an important class of catalysts for chemical synthesis and manufacturing, particularly for selective oxidation reactions. This dissertation seeks to understand broad relationships among families of silica-supported Group 4 and 5 metal oxide catalysts for the synthesis of epoxides with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and to further extend...
MoS2 is a ubiquitous catalyst for hydrogenation and hydrogenolysis reactions for hydrotreating of petroleum sources for the removal of sulfur and nitrogen containing compounds. Through exploration of this activity, structural models for MoS2 as a series of stacked S-Mo-S platelets held together by Van der Waals forces has been developed....
Lewis acids are an important class of catalysts for chemical synthesis and manufacturing. Tris-(pentafluorophenyl)borane (FAB) catalyst has been discovered as an excellent Lewis acid catalyst for a great variety of reactions in organic and organometallic chemistry, particularly for alkoxylation reactions which is relevant to the industrial production of polyether alcohols....
Metabolic engineering of microorganisms to produce useful compounds from renewable substrates is a promising means for sustainable, on-demand production of chemicals. However, efforts to design and engineer microbial cell factories are constrained by costly and slow “build” times in which each genetic variation requires re-engineering a new strain for each...
The rational and deliberate assembly of functional materials from nanoscale building blocks requires a fundamental understanding of interactions between individual components as well as their collective behavior. This thesis investigates the hierarchical organization of nanoparticles using DNA into well-defined three-dimensional materials on the micrometer and millimeter length scales. This assembly...
Computational models greatly benefit metabolic engineering efforts by helping to elucidate experimental observations and predict engineering targets for improved cellular performance. Additionally, supplementing experimental efforts with computational modeling can reduce the loss of time and resources in the lab by narrowing down testing conditions. In optimal cases, computational models can...
The ability to efficiently sense and respond to molecular signals is crucial for any organism's survival. Sensitive, specific and timely, microbial sensing systems provide an excellent starting point for the engineering of single-celled organisms to detect new molecules of human interest. Towards this goal, our lab pursues the engineering of...
Mixed oxides including SiO2', 'and supported oxides on SiO2', 'comprise the majority of', 'heterogeneous catalysts employed in the chemical industry. SiO2', '-Al2O3', 'and microporous,', 'crystalline variants called zeolites have been used widely since the 1960s in petroleum', 'processing, commodity chemical production, and fine chemical synthesis [1]. SiO2', 'supported', 'TiOx catalysts...
The use of biomass as a feedstock for fuels and chemicals has been a long-standing challenge and opportunity for the chemical and basic materials industries. In order to unlock the value of biomass, it is necessary to first deconstruct its structural polymers, cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin, into low molecular weight...