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| Born Chicago, Illinois, 1968. |
| University of Illinois, B.S., 1989. |
| California Institute of Technology, Ph.D., 1994. |
| Harvard University, American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 1994-96. |
| The University of Chicago, Professor, 1996-. |
| Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Investigator, 2005-. |
| AAAS Fellow, 2005-. |
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| Accolades |
| 2005 elected as a fellow to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. |
| 2003 ACS Cope Scholar Award. |
| 2002 TR100 Young Innovator. |
| 2000 Alfred P. Sloan Fellow. |
| 2000 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award |
| 1997- Editorial Board, Langmuir. |
| 1996 Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award. |
| 1996 Searle Scholar. |
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| Milan Mrksich |
| Professor |
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| Research Interests: |
| The Mrksich Group has a broad interest in areas that intersect chemistry, biology and materials. A common thread through several of the our programs is the interface between a material and a biological environment. We make use of self-assembled monolayers to design and synthesize surfaces having well-defined structures and properties. The programs are largely problem-driven and address both fundamental and applied questions. |
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| Cell Adhesion and Migration |
| The majority of mammalian cells are adherent and must attach to an extracellular matrix in order to survive, proliferate and carry out important metabolic activities. These activities are, in large part, controlled by the ligand-receptor interactions between the cell and the matrix. Our program develops surface chemistries to access substrates that mimic the natural protein matrix, and therefore that provide model systems for understanding the mechanisms by which cell-matrix interactions operate. |
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| Electroactive Substrates |
| Interfaces between materials and biological fluids are prevalent, including substrates used in tissue culture, biochip microarays used in drug discovery and microfluidic devices used in biochemical assays. The development of interfaces that not only present ligands for selective interaction with proteins, but that can manipulate the activities of the immobilized ligands in real-time would provide new opportunities in basic and applied research. We have a program to develop electroactive interfaces that switch the immobilized ligands on and off in response to applied potentials. This work is based on a physical-organic approach to designing ligands that incorporate redox-active groups to manipulate the ligand activities. |
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| Physical Organic Chemistry of Interfacial Reactions |
| This program addresses fundamental aspects of interfacial reactions. Mechanistic studies of the reactions of molecules in solution are supported by a well developed intuition and set of methods from physical organic chemistry. The reactions of molecules at the solid-liquid interface often behave in ways that are very different from those in solution. To investigate these differences, we use a combination of monolayers as structurally well-defined interfaces and cyclic voltammetry to report on the kinetics of reactions. This program has revealed several mechanistic factors that are important to interfacial reactions, but that have no counterpart in solution reactions. |
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| Drug Discovery |
| The recent emergence of bio-warfare agents as an everyday threat has necessitated the development of small molecule pharmaceuticals against these targets. We have a twofold program that is developing label-less strategies for high throughput screening, and applying these methods to BW targets. In a significant advance, we formulated a monolayer substrates for characterization by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. Using this method, we have identified lead compounds for the anthrax lethal factor and edema factor and are mapping out the structure-activity relationships to develop preclinical candidates. |
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| NanoPatterning and Self-Assembly |
| Many phenomena–from biological activities in cells to optical properties of materials–stem from nano-scale organization. We are developing methods to prepare two- and three-dimensional materials with well-defined chemistries. In the former, we employ contact and photo lithographies to tailor materials properties. For three-dimensional materials, we harness the self-assembly of proteins to organize nano-scale lattices. |
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| Selected References |
| Chemical Screening by Mass
Spectrometry to Identify Inhibitors
of Anthrax Lethal Factor. Nature Biotechnology, 22, 717-720 (2004). |
| Rewiring Cell Adhesion. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 19, 6504-6505 (2004). |
| Dynamic Interfaces Between
Cells and Surfaces: Electroactive
Substrates that Sequentially
Release and Attach Cells.
J. Am. Chem. Soc., 125,
14994-14995 (2003). |
| Self-Assembled Monolayers that
Transduce Enzymatic Activities to
Electrical Signals. Angew. Chem.
Int. Ed, 42, 3121-3124 (2003). |
| Using Mass Spectrometry to Characterize Self-Assembled Monolayers Presenting Peptides, Proteins and Carbohydrates. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 41, 4715-4718 (2002). |
| Selective Immobilization of Protein to Self-Assembled Monolayers Presenting Active Site Directed Capture Ligands. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., USA, 99, 5048-5052 (2002). |
| Protein Nanoarrays Generated by Dip-Pen Nanolithography. Science, 295, 1702-1705 (2002). |
| Carbohydrate Arrays for the Evaluation of Protein Binding and Enzyme Activity. Chem. & Biol., 9, 443-454 (2002). |
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Organic Chemistry 