Harnessing membrane-protein interactions to 
engineer synthetic and cellular lipid membranes

Tuesday, March 31st, 2:00 pm- 3:00 am
EER Innovation Center | https://utexas.zoom.us/j/86717794964
Center for Dynamics and Control of 
Materials: MRSEC Seminar
Membranes play a vital role in a variety of physiological
processes. Recreating these processes outside of the
cell will allow us to better understand them as well as
design an entirely new class of materials that can sense,
transport, or target important biological signals and
molecules. In this talk, I will present our recent work
harnessing lipid-protein interactions to design
membrane-based nanoparticles (sometimes referred to
as artificial cells) for biosensing and therapeutic
applications. Our approach, bridging synthetic biology
techniques and model membrane assembly, provides an
innovative yet simple method to probe the role of
membrane composition and biophysical properties on
protein dynamics and to advance the design of
nanoparticles that leverage membrane protein activity.
Neha Kamat is an Associate Professor at Northwestern University in the Biomedical Engineering
Department in Evanston, Illinois. She was trained as a bioengineer with special emphasis in
biophysical analysis of biological and synthetic membranes, and in the production and
characterization of membrane proteins using cell-free protein expression systems. She received a BS
in Bioengineering from Rice University, a PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania,
and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University/ Massachusetts General Hospital. At
Northwestern University, the Kamat lab’s main research interests are to understand and harness
biological membranes as a biomaterial for (i) fundamental biological studies related to membrane
protein folding and function and (2) translational applications in diagnostics and disease. Neha is the
recipient of a Young Investigator Award from the Air Force Research Office, an NSF CAREER Award,
and the ACS Synthetic Biology Young Innovator Award