What do we do?

We study the role of lipids in health and diseases by determining their interactions with lipid carrier proteins (albumin, HDL) and cognate G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) by maximizing the preservation of their in vivo conditions. The research involves quantitative measurement of lipids interaction by the development of lipid binding assays in label-free, free solution arrangement, which we called Free Solution Assay (FSA) (shown below) and measurement of such FSA in real time using a cutting-edge technology, called Compensated Interferometric Reader (CIR) which was developed by Prof. Bornhop group at Vanderbilt University. The research at the interface of chemistry and biology adopts different strategies of cellular biology (cell culture,flow cytometry, electron microscopy, western blots), and biophysical/bioanalytical (Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), Fluorescenece spectroscopy, microplate reader, chromatography techniques) approaches to investigate different lipids , and their interactions via three projects.

Group news:

• Ray and Aryana presented research work in the ACS spring meeting , San Diego, CA (March 2025)

• Welcome Emma, Karim and Ben to the group

• Ray was a panel speaker in

• Ray presented the group research in Medical College of Wisconsin(Oct 25th, 2024)

• Ray presented the group research in University of St. Thomas, Minnesota (Oct 18th, 2024)

• Congratulations to Aryana and Madeline for their first paper from the group. It is a contribution to the Krishnan Raghavachari festschrift in Journal of Physical Chemistry B (December 2023) ; https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.3c05041

• Shalom Nadoff has joined the group this Fall 2023, Welcome Shalom!

• Group has submitted its first article! (July 2023)

• Dhruv Patel has joined the group, Welcome Dhruv!

• Katherine Summers has joined the group from Fall 2023. Welcome Katherine!

• Daria Kozuch has joined the group from Fall 2023. Welcome Daria!

• Madeline Ganshert joined the group in Spring 2023. She is a carbon fellow and will be working jointly with Dr. Dali Liu’s group at the department, Welcome Madeline!

• Jennifer has joined the group from Fall 2023, Welcome Jennifer!

• Jennifer has joined 2023 summer from CAS-USRE program, for the introduction of research. She is interested to join the group this coming Fall 2023

• Aryana has joined the group on Summer 2022; Welcome Aryana!

• Dr. Ray has joined the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Loyola in August 2022.

  Here is a link: https://www.luc.edu/chemistry/homenews/2022newfaculty.shtml