Soohyun Park

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Verified

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• Ph.D.
• Senior Scientist at BioMed X Institute

Pollen’s practically-indestructible shell structure has long inspired the biomimetic design of organic materials. However, there is limited understanding of how the mechanical, chemical, and adhesion properties of pollen are biologically controlled and whether strategies can be devised to manipulate pollen beyond natural performance limits. Here, w...

Crystallization of membrane-embedded components within phospholipid bilayers represents a distinct class of phase transformation that occurs in structurally organized, molecularly crowded, and dimensionally constrained amphiphilic fluids. Using unstable supported lipid bilayers—transiently assembled via surface-mediated fusion and spreading of bice...

Continuous in vivo monitoring of small molecule biomarkers requires biosensors with reversibility, sensitivity in physiologically relevant ranges, and biological stability. Leveraging the real-time, label-free detection capability of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technology, a molecularly responsive hydrogel film is introduced to enhance small mo...

Lipid‐based nanoparticles have emerged as a clinically viable platform technology to deliver nucleic acids for a wide range of healthcare applications. Within this scope, one of the most exciting areas of recent progress and future innovation potential lies in the material science of lipid‐based nanoparticles, both to refine existing nanoparticle s...

Real-time monitoring of therapeutic drugs is crucial for treatment management and pharmacokinetic studies. We present the optimization and affinity tuning of split-aptamer sandwich assay for real-time monitoring of the narrow...

Antimicrobial fatty acids derived from natural sources and renewable feedstocks are promising surface-active substances with a wide range of applications. Their ability to target bacterial membrane in multiple mechanisms offers a promising antimicrobial approach for combating bacterial infections and preventing the development of drug-resistant str...

Membrane-enveloped viruses are responsible for most viral pandemics in history, and more effort is needed to advance broadly applicable countermeasures to mitigate the impact of future outbreaks. In this Perspective, we discuss how biosensing techniques associated with lipid model membrane platforms are contributing to improving our mechanistic kno...

Cell-membrane-mimicking supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) provide an ultrathin, self-assembled layer that forms on solid supports and can exhibit antifouling, signaling, and transport properties among various possible functions. While recent material innovations have increased the number of practically useful SLB fabrication methods, typical SLB plat...

While noncovalent forces typically drive lipid vesicle adsorption and rupture to form supported lipid bilayer (SLB) coatings on inorganic surfaces for various material science applications, this strategy only works on a few materials with suitable energetics such as SiO2. The use of coordination chemistry between inverse phosphocholine (PC) lipid h...

While noncovalent forces typically drive lipid vesicle adsorption and rupture to form supported lipid bilayer (SLB) coatings on inorganic surfaces, this strategy only works on a few materials with suitable energetics such as SiO2. The use of coordination chemistry between inverse-phosphocholine (PC) lipid headgroups and surfaces has emerged as a pr...

The irreversible formation of cholesterol monohydrate crystals within biological membranes is the leading cause of various diseases, including atherosclerosis. Understanding the process of cholesterol crystallization is fundamentally important and could also lead to the development of improved therapeutic strategies. This has driven several studies...

Lipid bicelles are cell membrane-mimicking nanostructures that self-assemble from mixtures of long- and short-chain lipidic components and are widely used in various applications related to structural biology, drug delivery, and interfacial science. To date, most research efforts have focused on bicelles as passive structural carriers to host membr...

Pollen is one of nature's most resilient materials and widely used as chemically stable environmental markers and in drug delivery. Recent findings show that a simple alkali treatment, similar to traditional soapmaking, can convert hard pollen grains into soft microgel particles, which exhibit stimuli-responsive changes in size and mechanical prope...

Originally developed for the structural biology field, lipid bicelle nanostructures composed of long- and short-chain phospholipid molecules have emerged as a useful interfacial science tool to fabricate two-dimensional supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) on hydrophilic surfaces due to ease of sample preparation, scalability, and versatility. To improv...

The development of real-time measurement strategies to quantitatively characterize dynamic morphological changes of cell membrane-mimicking biomaterial platforms is an important technological need for membrane-active drug development. One of the most promising classes of membrane-active drug candidates is medium-chain monoglycerides, which demonstr...

Using quartz crystal microbalance-dissipation and time-lapse fluorescence microscopy, we demonstrate that adding mixtures of lauric acid (LA) and glycerol monolaurate (GML) – two of the most biologically active antimicrobial fatty acids and monoglycerides – to a supported lipid bilayer triggers concurrent tubule and bud formation, which unexpectedl...

Supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) spanning hydrophilic surfaces are industrially attractive biomimetic coatings that mimic critical aspects of lipid membrane interfaces and are increasingly used in applications spanning medicine, biotechnology, and environmental science. The use of adsorbing bicelle lipid nanostructures composed of long- and short-ch...

Supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) are versatile cell-membrane-mimicking biointerfaces for various applications such as biosensors and drug delivery systems, and there is broad interest in developing simple, cost-effective methods to achieve SLB fabrication. One promising approach involves the deposition of quasi-two-dimensional bicelle nanostructures...

Tethered bilayer lipid membranes (tBLMs) represent a promising model membrane system that can host transmembrane proteins to serve as biosensors with exceptional detection performance. Herein, using the quartz crystal microbalance-dissipation (QCM-D) technique, we systematically investigated the influence of tether density on tBLM-peptide interacti...

Supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) are simplified model membrane systems that mimic the fundamental properties of biological cell membranes and allow the surface-sensitive tools to be used in numerous sensing applications. SLBs can be prepared by various methods including vesicle fusion, solvent-assisted lipid bilayer (SALB) and bicelle adsorption, an...

The deposition of two-dimensional bicellar disks on hydrophilic surfaces is an emerging approach to fabricate supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) that requires minimal sample preparation, works at low lipid concentrations, and yields high-quality SLBs. While basic operating steps in the fabrication protocol mimic aspects of the conventional vesicle fus...

In recent years, certain amphipathic, α-helical peptides have been discovered that inhibit medically important enveloped viruses by disrupting the lipid membrane surrounding individual virus particles. Interestingly, only a small subset of amphipathic, α-helical peptides demonstrates inhibitory activity, and there is broad interest in understanding...

The supported lipid bilayer (SLB) platform is a popular cell membrane mimic that is utilized in the chemical, biological, materials science, and medical fields. To date, SLB preparation has proven challenging because of the need for specialized fabrication equipment, domain-specific knowledge about topics relevant to lipid self-assembly, and extens...

Highly parallel measurements on single, tethered lipid vesicles enable real-time monitoring of dynamic membrane interactions of relevance to medical, pharmaceutical, and biotechnological applications. Monitoring the time-dependent release of entrapped fluorescent dyes is a popular measurement approach, although it is often challenging to accurately...

The function of biological nanoparticles, such as membrane-enveloped viral particles, is often enhanced when the particles form higher-order supramolecular assemblies. While there is intense interest in developing biomimetic platforms that recapitulate these collective properties, existing platforms are limited to mimicking individual virus particl...

Monoglycerides are esterified adducts of fatty acid and glycerol molecules that disrupt phospholipid membranes, leading to a wide range of biological functions such as antimicrobial activity. Among monoglycerides, glycerol monolaurate (GML) exhibits particularly high antimicrobial activity, although enzymatic hydrolysis of its ester group can dimin...

Zika virus is a mosquito-borne virus that is associated with neurodegenerative diseases, including Guillain–Barré syndrome¹ and congenital Zika syndrome². As Zika virus targets the nervous system, there is an urgent need to develop therapeutic strategies that inhibit Zika virus infection in the brain. Here, we have engineered a brain-penetrating pe...

Fatty acids and monoglycerides are single-chain lipid amphiphiles that interact with phospholipid membranes as part of various biological activities. For example, they can exhibit membrane-disruptive behavior against microbial pathogens on the human skin surface. Supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) provide a useful experimental platform to characterize...

The cover represents the dual molecular encapsulation using natural pine pollen, as described in article number 1800151 by Eijiro Miyako, Nam‐Joon Cho and coworkers. By simple vacuum and passive loading methods, they demonstrate that diverse molecules are binary encapsulated into the pollen microcapsule. In addition, the loaded molecules can be eff...

Monoamine oxidase A and B (MAO-A & B) are mitochondrial outer membrane enzymes that are implicated in a number of human diseases, and pharmacological inhibition of these enzymes is a promising therapeutic strategy to alleviate disease symptoms. It has been suggested that optimal levels of enzymatic activity occur in the membrane-associated state, a...

The loading of multiple drugs into a single carrier is an effective advanced clinical therapeutic for various diseases. Here, by exploiting the architectural features of natural pine pollen from Pinus massoniana, the spatially controlled encapsulation of two types of molecules in distinct compartments of a single microparticulate carrier is demonst...

Nanoplasmonic sensors have emerged as a promising measurement approach to track biomacromolecular interactions involving lipid membrane interfaces. By taking advantage of nanoscale fabrication capabilities, it is possible to design sensing platforms with various architectural configurations. Such capabilities open the door to fabricating lipid memb...

COEs are emerging antimicrobials to combat drug resistant infections and to which bacteria develop only limited resistance.

In article number 1700270, Sa-Ik Bang, Nam-Joon Cho, and co-workers describe how to optimize loading and controlled release of plant-based hollow microcapsules for oral drug delivery. Extracted sporopollenin exine capsules from sun flowers are successfully loaded with protein and formulated into enterically coated tablets.

Efficient oral administration of protein-based therapeutics faces significant challenges due to degradation from the highly acidic conditions present in the stomach and proteases present in the digestive tract. Herein, investigations into spike-covered sunflower sporopollenin exine capsules (SECs) for oral protein delivery using bovine serum albumi...

Inadequate rheological properties of gelatin methacrylamide (GelMA) were successfully improved by incorporating cellulose nanofibers (CNFs), such that the printed scaffolds could maintain their structural fidelity during the three-dimensional (3D) bio-printing process. The CNFs provided an outstanding shear thinning property, and the GelMA/CNF inks...

Herein, the exploration of natural plant-based "spores" for the encapsulation of macromolecules as a drug delivery platform is reported. Benefits of encapsulation with natural "spores" include highly uniform size distribution and materials encapsulation by relatively economical and simple versatile methods. The natural spores possess unique microme...

In nature, pollen grains play a vital role for encapsulation. Many pollen species exist which are often used as human food supplements. Dynamic image particle analysis, scanning electron microscopy, and confocal microscopy analysis confirmed the size, structural uniformity, and macromolecular encapsulation in sunflower pollen, paving the way to exp...