Overview: The Pazzi lab is currently focused on engineering synthetic biological constructs for medical applications. The research is guided by our curiosity to better understand natural biological membranes and develop novel technologies that mimic these containers that are so essential to life. You can click here to find publications or you can read about some projects in the lab below!
Project 1: Effect of solvents on yields of GUVs. Giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) are micrometer sized compartments that resemble the structure of the cell plasma membrane. GUVs have generated excitement over a wide variety of uses including as artificial red blood cells, synthetic drug capsules for gene and protein therapies and simplified plasma membrane models for biophysical experiments. Current methods to form GUVs can be limited by long incubation times, extensive substrate preparatory steps and in particular low GUV efficiency. In this project, we aim to discover the effects of the evaporation rate of the lipid solvent on the yields of GUVs.
Project 2: Novel mRNA-lipid nanoparticle constructs. Lipids are fundamental structural molecules of eukaryotic cell membranes and essential for containing and maintaining the interior components inside of a cell, the basic unit of life. In our lab we are currently working on studying the effects of different types of lipids on the size, shape, and lamellarity of the different structures that can be produced. Current medical applications involve the improved delivery of mRNA for vaccines and potentially therapuetics.
Project 3: Quantificatoin of various lipid structures from fluorescence microscopy images using trained image analysis software. To characterize the different lipid structures we obtain from experiments we use fluorescent microscopy. Quantification of giant vesicles (GUVs) is fairly straightforward in these images since the GUVs are large and circular. However, recently we have been interested in an automated procedure to quantify lipid structures under various imaging conditions. This project requires the use of programming languages to develop code to perform the image analysis.
Project 4: Development of model biological systems using porous membranes and lipids. Biosensors play a role in many areas such as disease detection, environment or water monitoring, food quality, drug discovery and others. Most current commercial technologies are limited to providing only a qualitative reading at a point-of-care setting and are not quantitative and often cannot measure lower concentrations. Cells are constantly performing complicated biosensing actions at their interfaces which are lipid-based cell membranes. In this project we aim to functionalize a supported lipid bilayer material to achieve unique biosensing potentials.
Project 5: Development of quantitative point of care diagnostics. Accessibility to healthcare information at home or in a point of care environment would be an important step forward in diagnosing or detecting health issues. Current methods for point of care diagnostics are limited to being qualitative, meaning they can only tell the user "yes" or "no" that an analyte is present, but they do not say how much of an analyte is present. To determine the current status of health the amount or concentration of various biomarkers is essential, and we are currently working on understanding the whether paper can be used to transduce quantitative signals.
Citations:
(1) Pazzi, J.; Subramaniam, A. B. Nanoscale Curvature Promotes High Yield Spontaneous Formation of Cell-Mimetic Giant Vesicles on Nanocellulose Paper. ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2020, 12, 56549– 56561.
(2) Pazzi, J. E. (2021). A Comprehensive Characterization of Surface-Assembled Populations of Giant Liposomes using Novel Confocal Microscopy-Based Methods. UC Merced. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4v1513rs