Jin Kim Montclare
New York University, NY·Biomedical Engineering
Chronic wounds, especially the foot ulcers that affect many people with diabetes, often fail to heal because treatments do not stay at the wound long enough or reach the cells that need them. A related problem runs through medicine: delivering fragile therapeutic molecules, such as RNA, into cells without losing them on the way.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Chemistry
Materials Science
- Topics
protein engineering
hydrogels
biomaterials
- Grants
- 3 known grants, through May 2028
What they work on
- Expand a library of positively charged supercharged proteins with virus-derived tags to help siRNA particles escape endosomes, the membrane bubbles that trap cargo inside cells, while keeping strong RNA binding, using computationally informed design.
- Evaluate how the outer liposome, a fat-based shell, of lipoproteoplex nanoparticles affects protection of siRNA cargo and the way the particles self-assemble.
- Determine how cells take up lipoproteoplexes and deliver siRNA against Keap1, a gene that dampens the cell's stress-protection response, to promote skin repair in a humanized mouse model of diabetic wounds.
- Generate coiled-coil protein fibers containing trifluoroleucine, a fluorinated amino acid, that encapsulate drugs and release them in a controlled way.
- Develop fluorinated coiled-coil hydrogels that form or dissolve in response to temperature, and test fibers and gels as 19F MRI/MRS imaging agents.
- Assess the clinical need and commercial path for a Q-protein scaffold and exosome hydrogel for diabetic foot ulcers through interviews with wound-care specialists.
More about the research
The work across these grants designs proteins from the ground up and assembles them into materials such as fibers, gels and tiny particles. These materials can hold, protect and slowly release medicines, and some can also be tracked inside the body.
Why it matters
Diabetic foot ulcers and other chronic wounds are costly and often heal poorly. Gene-silencing particles, protein–exosome gels and drug-releasing fibers could give clinicians simpler topical treatments that stay at the wound and support repair. The siRNA delivery platform could later be adapted to inherited skin disorders caused by single genes. Fluorine-labeled materials could let doctors use MRI to track where a therapy goes in the body.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Modular Toolbox of Protein and Lipid Hybrid Biomaterials for siRNA Delivery
NIH · Aug 2024 – May 2028
Collaborative Research: Traceable Fluorinated Protein Engineered Fibers and Hydrogels
NSF · Sep 2024 – Aug 2027
I-Corps: Translation potential of therapeutic hydrogel combining a Q-protein scaffold with exosomes to accelerate wound healing in chronic conditions
NSF · Aug 2026 – Jul 2027
Closest labs
Suresh Kumar Thallapuranam
University of Arkansas, AR·Biochemistry
Design a hyperstable, bioactive dimer that fuses the growth factors FGF1 and FGF2, and create more stable variants that resist breakdown at the wound site.
Dan Shu
Ohio State University, OH·Biomedical Engineering
Build and evaluate exosome–RNA nanoparticle complexes carrying TNBC-targeting ligands, including RNA aptamers against EGFR, CD133, CD44 or nAHRs and the chemical ligand methotrexate, together with tumor-suppressing siRNA and miRNA cargo.
Virginie Papadopoulou
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Biomedical Engineering
Optimize phase-change contrast agents, droplets that turn into bubbles under ultrasound, and therapeutic ultrasound settings to boost antibiotics against biofilms of Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterococcus faecalis in vitro.
The school
New York University: 72 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 540 research doctorates a year.
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