News

7/2026: Roberto Herrera, PhD student in our GANS team, and Dr. Phan attended the Surface X-ray and Neutron Scattering (SXNS18), an international conference focusing on recent advances in instrumentation, data analysis, and scientific discoveries centered on surfaces and interfaces across solid, liquid, biological, and soft and hard condensed-matter systems, using advanced X-ray and neutron scattering techniques. Roberto contributed an oral talk, titled "Development of Autonomous Experimentation at the MU Research Reactor's GANS Neutron Reflectometer for Studies on Model Biomembranes," in the kick-off session, while Dr. Phan joined the concluding session with an oral contribution on "Structural and Mechanical Properties of the Interactions Between Extracellular Matrix Proteins and Biomembranes, and Their Influences on Cellular Behaviors." Dr. Phan also took this opportunity to introduce his new research group, featuring a unique workhorse neutron reflectometer for fundamental characterization of biomembrane models, combined with a cell lab for in vitro testing of cellular behavior.

7/2026: Dr. Phan attended the American Conference on Neutron Scattering (ACNS 2026) in Detroit, MI, and contributed a poster and oral presentations, both of which introduced the "Upgraded GANS Neutron Reflectometer at the University of Missouri Research Reactor" to the neutron community. Our instrument is still under commissioning, but it has had experiments lined up for the most part toward the end of the year from academic and industrial collaborators, as well as our MMB group members.

 At the end of ACNS 2026, Dr. Phan co-organized an ACNS-Satellite University-Based Neutron Sources Workshop. The workshop is a huge success with all leaders and representatives of major university-based neutron sources, the national leading neutron facilities at ORNL and NIST, international facilities like the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization (ANSTO), the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), as well as essential organizations such as the Neutron Scattering Society of America and the US DOE.

6/2026: Lexi Manthe, an undergraduate student at Mizzou majoring in Biomedical Engineering, will join us as a Nuclear Science Career Academy summer intern. Lexi will be working on an exciting disease biophysics project evaluating a possible cause of mitochondrial dysfunction: the failure of the biosynthetic pathway for cardiolipin, a unique lipid in mitochondria. This includes working with both newly acquired Langmuir monolayers and supported lipid bilayers, utilizing our newly commissioned neutron reflectometer.

5/2026: Dr. Phan delivered an invited talk entitled "Advancing Autonomous Experimentation at GANS Neutron Reflectometer to Accelerate Model Biomembrane Studies" during the "High-Throughput Experimentation at User Facilities using Automation and AI" Workshop at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Accompanying Dr. Phan was Dr. Bac Le, who participated in a visit to Oak Ridge to explore the established bio-deuteration system at the Bio-Deuteration Laboratory within the Center for Structural Molecular Biology. This initiative received significant support from Dr. Kevin Weiss and Dr. Hugh O'Neill, the Group Leader. During the visit, Dr. Le was introduced to an E. coli system and engaged in adaptation experiments using deuterium oxide (D2O) to gain practical experience. He plans to apply the expertise acquired from this hands-on experience to the MMB lab, aiming to produce both partially and fully deuterated extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins to support neutron reflectivity experiments at GANS.

4/2026: Exciting news! Veronica has been awarded a prestigious NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and will join a PhD program in Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University this Fall to pursue tissue engineering research, as she has always wanted. Well deserved and massive congrats!

4/2026: The MMB group participated in the Mizzou Show Me Research Week for the first time. Jessica showcased our research with a poster titled "Development of Extracellular Matrix Scaffolding on Model Biomembranes for Tissue Repairs." This presentation effectively illustrated our group's broader focus on tissue engineering and highlighted our ongoing efforts to advance the field of biomaterials for regenerative medicine.

4/2026: Delighted to send our research group's first manuscript out to bioRxiv 🥳🎉 We show distinct structural and mechanical properties of the three essential proteins in the extracellular matrix, namely collagen, fibronectin, and elastin, and how they influence cellular migration and control bacterial contamination when they are deposited on liposomes, which is a foundational design of our engineering regenerative medicine formula.

3/2026: Riley Kemna, an undergraduate student at Mizzou majoring in the Biological Engineering honors program, will join us as a student research assistant. Riley will focus on the biophysical characterization of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins on model biomembranes. This includes working with both newly acquired Langmuir monolayers and supported lipid bilayers, utilizing our newly commissioned neutron reflectometer.

2/2026: Our lab has been officially approved for Biosafety Level 2 by the MU Institutional Biosafety Committee. The approval is valid for three years. We can now conduct our work on human cells and tissue reconstructions.

12/2025: Dr. Bac T. Le, a virology expert, joins us as a research specialist. Dr. Le will facilitate the lab setup for cell culture and develop protein expression with deuterium labeling. This capability will nicely complement our neutron scattering experiments at the GANS neutron reflectometer.

9/2025: Jessica Ruffing, an undergraduate student from Mizzou's Biomedical Engineering honors program, will join us as a student research assistant. Jessica will not only help establish our new lab at MURR but will also continue our collaboration with Dr. Cui's research group at Dalton. Additionally, she will receive training in cell handling from their team.

9/2025: We got the lab space for our research group at MURR.

5/2025: Veronica Ivanovskaya, an undergraduate student from Johns Hopkins University's Materials Science, joins us under the 1st Nuclear Career Academy summer internship at MURR. She will primarily conduct cell cultures and scratch assay experiments at the Dalton CardioVascular Research Center, perform dynamic light scattering at the Bond Life Center, and conduct small-angle X-ray scattering experiments at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Exciting!