The Mrksich Group

At the Interface of Organic Chemistry, Materials Science, and Biology

Zhaoyi’s Article Accepted by JACS

Congratulations to Jiangbo and Zhaoyi for having their article entitled “Megamolecule Self-Assembly Networks: A Combined Computational and Experimental Design Strategy” accepted into Journal of the American Chemical Society. View the full article here!

Guru’s Article Accepted by Langmuir

Congratulations to Mrksich Group Alum Guru Neupane for having his article entitled "HaloTag-Modified, Ferrocene Labeled Self-Assembled Monolayers for Protein Sensing" accepted into Langmuir. View the full article here!

Sraeyes’ Article Accepted by JACS

Congratulations to PhD candidate Sraeyes Sridhar for having his article entitled "Synthesis and Activity of T-Cell Tumor-Directing MegaMolecules" accepted into the Journal of the American Chemical Society. View the full article here!

Adam Elsharkawi Receives a McCormick Summer Undergraduate Research Award

Congratulations to undergraduate Adam Elsharkawi for being awarded a 2024 McCormick Summer Undergraduate Research Award for his proposal entitled: Dual Incorporation of Non-Canonical Amino Acids for Bioorthogonal Labeling of Cutinase at Three Sites!

Alumnus Liang Lin’s Manuscript Accepted by ACS Synthetic Biology

Congratulations to Dr. Liang Lin for having his article entitled “Using High-Throughput Experiments To Screen N-Glycosyltransferases with Altered Specificities” accepted by ACS Synthetic Biology. View the full article here!

About Our Group

Mrksich Group Holiday Party 2023
The Mrksich Group uses the tools of organic chemistry, materials science and biochemistry to address important challenges in and at the intersection of chemistry and biology.
We pioneered the development of MegaMolecules – a new way to engineer protein-based molecules with much greater control over their structure and complexity than with traditional techniques. With this approach, we can build structures composed of more than twenty protein domains, with branched, cyclic and dendritic architectures, and with molecular weights in excess of a million Daltons, for a broad range of basic and applied applications, with an emphasis on biomedical applications such as antibody mimics.
In another program, we emphasize the development of methods to perform high throughput experiments by combining engineered surfaces and mass spectrometry in a technique known as SAMDI-MS. This method has been used extensively to profile enzymatic activity both in situ and in complex lysates while permitting the analysis of tens of thousands of experiments in a day.

Research

Surface Chemistry, High-Throughput Experiments, and Protein Engineering

High-Throughput Experiments

Our group utilizes the inert, ordered structure of self-assembled monolayers with MALDI-MS (SAMDI) to profile biological and chemical reactions in a label-free, high-throughput manner.

Megamolecules

Our group developed a platform for assembling large (~MDa), modular, homogeneous protein structures for therapuetic and diagnostic use. 

Surface Chemistry and Cellular Control

Our group uses microcontact printing, dynamic photoactivation, and other methods to engineer substrates that control cellular adhesion and behavior.

Group Meetings

Group meetings are held in Tech B484. We invite first-year graduate students to attend group meetings. Please email mrksich-ofc@northwestern.edu with any questions.

  1. 10/2 5:00 PM Sraeyes
  2. 10/14 5:00 PM *Cancelled
  3. 10/28 5:00 PM Justin
  4. 11/11 5:00 PM Zhaoyi
  5. 11/25 5:00 PM Rahul
  6. 12/9 5:00 PM Bethel
  7. 1/13 5:00 PM Tori
  8. 1/27 5:00 PM Xandra
  9. 2/10 5:00 PM Grace W.
  10. 2/25 5:00 PM Grace M.

Subgroup Meetings

Subgroup meetings. also held in Tech B484, invite project-based discussions and collaboration. 

  • 10/21  1:00 PM Megamolecules
  • 11/7    1:30 PM Megamolecules
  • 11/21  10:00 AM Megamolecules
  • 12/12 10:00 AM Megamolecules

Funding Acknowledgements

Interested in Joining or Have Questions?