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Herdeline (Digs) Ardoña, Ph. D.

July 29, 2021 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Hierarchical Strategies Towards Biointerfacing With Soft Optoelectronic Materials

Abstract
The applications of functional nanomaterials towards biological interfacing continue to emerge in various fields, such as in drug delivery and tissue engineering. While the rational control of surface chemistry and mechanical properties have been achieved for several of these biocompatible systems, these biomaterials are rarely synthesized with optical and electronic functionalities that could be beneficial for controlling the behavior of excitable cells (e.g., neurons and cardiac cells) or for biosensing applications. In this seminar, I will first describe the development of one-dimensional peptidic nanostructures appended with organic electronic units, which can facilitate photoinduced energy transfer under aqueous environments. These semiconducting peptide monomers that self-assemble as aligned hydrogels are successfully built according to design principles that allowed for directed photonic energy transport, sequential electron transport in a multicomponent system, and transmission or equilibration of voltage or current when incorporated in a transistor device. These soft scaffolding materials, with tunable molecular to macroscale properties, offer a unique tissue engineering platform that can locally and synergistically deliver electronic, topographical, and biochemical cues to cells. In the second part of the talk, I will describe how to engineer in vitro models of cells and tissues which enables the understanding of nano-bio or abiotic-biotic interactions at multiple spatial scales. I will specifically describe physiologically relevant models that faithfully recapitulate the native form and function of cells or tissues involved in the systemic biodistribution of common nanomaterials—across biological barriers to target organs. These testing platforms were used to elucidate the dynamic structural and functional outcomes resulting from the exposure of vascular endothelium and myocardium to engineered nanomaterials. Finally, this presentation will discuss the future applications of biopolymer assemblies with photonic and electronic functionalities as tools for controlling cellular processes and probing biophysical phenomena, such as mechanotransduction and drug/toxicant permeation across tissues.

Biography
Herdeline Ann (Digs) M. Ardoña is originally from Valenzuela City, Philippines. She received her B.S. in Chemistry (summa cum laude) from the University of the Philippines Diliman in 2011. In 2017, she completed her Ph.D. in Chemistry at Johns Hopkins, with funding support from Schlumberger Foundation and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Her dissertation was focused on understanding the molecular design, photophysical properties, and supramolecular principles towards developing pi-conjugated peptide assemblies as bioelectronic nanomaterials. She then worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Disease Biophysics Group at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. As the 2018-2020 ACS Irving S. Sigal Postdoctoral Fellow, she investigated the structural and functional impacts of multiple engineered nanomaterials through microphysiological platforms and biohybrid models. Digs started as an Assistant Professor at the UCI Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in Fall 2020.

 

Sponsored by the Michael and Roberta Berns Laser Microbeam Program

Details

Date:
July 29, 2021
Time:
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Event Category:

Venue

Zoom Event
CA United States

Details

Date:
July 29, 2021
Time:
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Event Category:

Venue

Zoom Event
CA United States