Jonathan Pokorski
University of California-San Diego, CA·Chemistry
Living cells can be engineered to make medicines, act as medicines, or power sensors and energy devices. Biologists can control much of what happens inside a cell, but controlling the cell's outer surface is far harder.
- Fields
Chemistry
Materials Science
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
ring-opening metathesis polymerization
cell surface engineering
cell/polymer hybrid materials
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Develop ways to grow polymer chains of norbornene and oxanorbornene directly from cell surfaces using ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP), a catalyst-driven reaction that links ring-shaped building blocks into chains.
- Optimize macroinitiators, the anchor molecules where chains start growing, and catalyst complexes so that polymers grown on cells have even chain lengths and keep growing in a controlled, living manner.
- Build a general toolkit for labeling any cell with polymers by bonding them to surface proteins, inserting anchors into the membrane, or attaching them to the cell's surface sugars.
- Evaluate the long-term health of polymer-labeled cells, how long the labels persist, and which biochemical pathways inside the cells respond to labeling.
More about the research
That surface decides how a cell sticks to things, which tissues it targets, and whether unwanted material builds up on it. One way to gain control is to grow synthetic polymers, long chain-like molecules, directly on the cell surface. The result is a cell/polymer hybrid material (CPH). The chemical tools for building these hybrids are still limited.
Why it matters
Polymer coatings grown directly on cells could make cell-based technologies easier to control. They could help cell therapies target diseased tissue instead of healthy tissue. They could reduce unwanted buildup on cell surfaces and hold cells in place for continuous production of useful molecules. The resulting cell/polymer hybrids may find uses in health care, alternative energy, and long-lasting sensors.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Gannon Jennings
Vanderbilt University, TN·Engineering
Identify, synthesize and test new polymer membranes that separate water from polar organic solvents by pervaporation, using ring-opening metathesis polymerization and spin coating.
Wenyu Huang
Iowa State University, IA·Chemistry
Build a continuous-flow parahydrogen-induced polarization platform that links hydrogenation of carbon-13-labeled precursors, spin-order transfer to create hyperpolarized carbon-13 signals, and membrane-based extraction into water.
Adam Veige
University of Florida, FL·Chemistry
Synthesize a new tungsten or molybdenum alkylidyne catalyst that polymerizes alkynes into new cyclic polymers, exploring new ligand designs and metal attachment strategies.
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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