Tag: posts

The Sarles group welcomes two new members: Dr. Sam Mattern-Schain and Mr. Josh Maraj. Sam joins as a new postdoctoral researcher and Josh is a first year PhD student.

Megan Pitz’s research poster entitled, “Analyzing memcapacitive capabilities of lipid and polymer bilayers for use in smart materials” was awarded First Place in Research within the Tickle College of Engineering at the 2018 UTK EURēCA poster competition.  She was also recognized as a Gold Award winner from entries across all colleges at the university!  Great job Megan!

See more good press about her poster here:

2018 Event

Research Week Concludes with EURēCA Awards Night

We are excited to announce that Joseph’s paper entitled, “Memristive Ion Channel-Doped Biomembranes as Synaptic Mimics” was recently accepted by ACS Nano! This study is the first to demonstrate that biomembranes doped with alamethicin peptides exhibit voltage-dependent conductance with both short-term learning and memory capabilities–key features of synaptic plasticity in the brain! These findings forecast new opportunities for low-power neuromorphic materials built from biomolecules. Congrats Joseph and all co-authors!

*This work was funded by the NSF, Grant No: 1631472.

Andy was selected for a 2018 NSF Early CAREER Award for his proposal entitled, “Biophysical interactions of amphiphilic cell penetrating nanoparticles in complex model membranes.”  This project is scheduled to begin September 1, 2018 and is funded by the Biological and Environmental Interactions of Nanomaterials Program within CBET at NSF.

Andy was excited to attend and talk about our work at the 2018 Gordon Research Conference on Multifunctional Materials and Structures Conference in Ventura, CA.  A lot of great talks, exciting posters, good discussion, delicious food, and great weather!

Congratulations to Guru for being selected as a recipient of the 2017 Chancellor’s Extraordinary Campus Leadership and Service award!  Guru’s many contributions include the founding of new organizations and student events at UTK, successful leadership of existing student organizations, and student mentoring.

On April 13, Andy presented a lecture to the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at University at Buffalo entitled, “Biomimetic membranes at liquid interfaces:  a path toward cell-inspired materials.”  Thanks to Prof. Amin Karami for the invitation and to the faculty at UB for hosting his visit.

On April 6th, Guru Venkatesan was awarded the 2017 MABE Student leadership award at the Annual Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering (MABE) Banquet at the Foundry in Knoxville.  This award recognizes students who have demonstrated significant leadership during their time at UTK.  Among his many contributions, Guru is the founder and inaugural president of Tech CarniVol, a student organization that hosts an annual 1-day tech festival by the same name.  Separately, Guru served as President of the Manthan – Indian Student Association at UTK, he is a member of the UTK chapter of Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), and he participated in multiple BMEIdea Competitions, including the 2016 team that was chosen as the national award winner for their idea FastCast.  Congrats on your award and for your contributions to this university!