Michael J Sailor
University of California-San Diego, CA·Chemistry
Designing materials and particles at the nanoscale opens new ways to control light, electrons and even drug delivery in the body. The lab's grants cover two very different directions.
- Fields
Chemistry
Materials Science
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
porous silicon nanoparticles
nanomedicine
RNA therapeutics
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Aug 2032
What they work on
- Develop quantum metamaterials built from quantum clusters, particles and quantum wells that achieve ultrahigh optical nonlinearity and ultrafast response from terahertz to visible frequencies, guided by first-principles calculations and deep learning.
- Use synthetic organic and coordination chemistry to build molecular superlattices on two-dimensional solids that create flat electronic bands and correlated effects such as superconductivity and quantum spin liquids, guided by multiscale modeling.
- Screen for new peptides that steer nanoparticles to macrophages in infected mouse lungs, benchmarked against the macrophage-targeting peptide CRV, in models of Klebsiella pneumoniae, Aspergillus fumigatus and influenza A pneumonia.
- Compare lipid, tandem peptide and fusogenic porous silicon nanoparticles carrying RNA drugs for toxicity, gene knockdown, macrophage polarization and tissue distribution, then select the best candidates.
- Test leading macrophage-targeted nanoparticles given by intranasal or nebulized delivery in mouse pneumonia models for safety, pathogen clearance, tissue recovery and survival.
More about the research
One is a large center that studies new quantum and electronic materials, which the lab leads as contact PI. The other is a nanomedicine project that builds tiny particles to carry RNA drugs to immune cells in infected lungs.
Why it matters
Pneumonia caused by drug-resistant bacteria, fungi and influenza needs new treatments. Nanoparticles that deliver RNA drugs to lung macrophages could calm harmful inflammation while keeping pathogen clearance intact, and could offer design rules for treating many lung infections. The materials center's quantum metamaterials and engineered 2D electronic materials could inform future computing, communication, optoelectronic and quantum sensing technologies.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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Use thermoelectric and thermal Hall measurements to determine the nature of the magnetic-field-driven insulator-to-metal transition and the origin of quantum oscillations in Kondo insulators.
Yusong Bai
Brown University, RI·Physics·Early-career
Establish correlated electronic states and electric-field-controlled metal-insulator transitions in heterostructures where ordered nanocrystal superlattices impose periodic potentials on atomically thin materials, using low-temperature electrical transport.
The school
University of California-San Diego: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 637 research doctorates a year.
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