Chang Liu, an assistant professor of chemical engineering and biomedical engineering, authored, “Nanopore sensing of γ‐cyclodextrin induced host‐guest interaction to reverse the binding of perfluorooctanoic acid to human serum albumin, along with CEC colleague Xiaojun Wei and University of South Carolina Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Professor Qian Wang. It was the cover article for the March 2022 issue of Proteomics.

“Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) has been one of the most common perfluorochemicals, which are persistent and toxic contaminants that have adverse impacts on human health. The highest concentration of PFOA occurs in the blood, where it strongly binds to human serum albumins (HSA), which are one of the most prominent proteins in human blood,” Liu says. “A method to reverse the HSA-PFOA binding is critical to help facilitate the faster elimination of PFOA from the body to minimize its toxicological effects.”

Chemical Engineering Assistant Professor Sanaz Sadati was a corresponding author for, “Capillary Flow Characterizations of Chiral Nematic Cellulose Nanocrystal Suspensions," which was the cover story for the February 2022 issue of Langmuir, a publication of the American Chemical Society. The research and findings discussed in the article were completed in Sadati’s lab.

“Research in my lab focuses on the design of bioinspired functional architectures and materials for a wide range of applications. Among complex hierarchical structures in nature is Bouligand, where the cellulose nanofibers are arranged in chiral (spiral) form. We use advanced fabrication technologies including 3D printing to carefully control the location and orientation,” Sadati says.

“Over the course of this study, we found that shear flow forces can untwist the chiral structures starting from high shear regions. A deep understanding of the flow effect on the alignment of the chiral assembly is particularly important in the design of 3D printed architectures with internal Bouligand nanostructure.”