The Ardoña Research Group at UC Irvine works on macromolecular and biomolecular systems designed as biomaterials that can probe or transduce signals for conductive cell-material interfaces. We leverage these systems for creating tissue engineered-model platforms to study physiological/pathophysiological mechanisms that involve action potential propagation and cellular mechanotransduction in excitable tissues.
FEATURED NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
EMIL'S PAPER IS ACCEPTED TO ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES!
5/20/2025
Congratulations to Emil for the acceptance of his paper "Micropatterning Photoconductive Peptide Assemblies on Stiff and Soft Biomaterial Substrates" to ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces! Katie, Lanie, Krystal, Sue, Natalie, Yuyao, Zefan, and Sheng Wei were contributing authors for this paper.
UNDERGRADUATE PRESENTATIONS AT UROP SYMPOSIUM WEEK 2025
5/2/2025
Caleb, Catherine, Maddie, Nadeen, and Zachari presented at the CBE Symposium 2025! Caleb gave an oral presentation and Catherine, Maddie, Nadeen, and Zachari presented at the poster presentation session!
GROUP PRESENTATIONS AT CBE SYMPOSIUM 2025
5/2/2025
Harrison, Katie, and Maddie presented at the CBE Symposium 2025! Harrison gave an oral presentation and Katie and Maddie presented at the poster session!
HARRISON'S PAPER IS ACCEPTED TO FARADAY DISCUSSIONS!
3/3/2025
Congratulations to Harrison for the acceptance of his paper "Supramolecular peptidic dopants for inducing photoconductivity and mechanical tunability in digital light processable hydrogels" to Faraday Discussions! This manuscript is featured in the "Advances in Supramolecular Gels" special issue of the journal. Yuyao and Zefan were contributing authors for this paper.
SUE AND EMIL RECOGNIZED FOR PRESENTATIONS AT 2025 STEM CELL SYMPOSIUM!
2/12/2025
Congratulations to Sue and Emil for receiving awards at the 2025 Stem Cell Symposium! Sue was recognized for the Selected Graduate Student Talk and Emil was recognized for the Poster Award! They both did a great job at the symposium!
KATIE IS AWARDED THE ACS WCC/ELI LILLY TRAVEL AWARD!
2/11/2024
Congratulations to Katie for being awarded the ACS Women Chemists Committee Travel Award, sponsored by Eli Lilly & Company! She will be presenting at the ACS Spring 2025 Meeting in San Diego, CA.
WELCOME NEW STUDENTS!
2/11/2025
We have welcomed several undergrads this quarter! Ami is a fourth-year CBE student and will be working with Katie. Aayat is a second-year CBE student and will also be working with Katie. Carly is a fourth-year Chemistry student and will be working with Sheng Wei. Doyle is a second-year CBE student and will be working with Harrison.
UNDERGRADUATES AWARDED UROP FELLOWSHIPS!
12/17/2024
Congratulations to Maddie, Caleb, and Nadeen for being selected as UROP Fellows! They will continue working on their projects with Katie, Sue, and Yuyao respectively.
WELCOME NEW STUDENTS!
10/2024
We have welcomed several students this quarter! Miki (top left) is a M.S. student in the BME department. Brandon (top right) is a second-year CBE student and will be working with Yuyao. Zachari (bottom left) is a second-year BME student and will be working with Sheng Wei. Nam (bottom right) is a second-year CBE student and will be working with Bubbles.
BUBBLES AND SUE'S PAPER IS PUBLISHED!
10/9/2024
Congratulations to Bubbles and Sue for their paper "Non-Uniform Electric Field Manipulation of Chromogenic Peptide Amphiphile Assemblies" getting accepted and published in ChemSystemsChem! This work is done in collaboration with Prof. Tayloria Adams. Emil, Yuyao, and Harrison were contributing authors for this paper.
The paper is part of the Systems Chemistry Talents special collection of the journal, thanks to nominations from members of the journal's Editorial Advisory Board.
NATALIE IS AWARDED THE CIRM PREDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP!
9/23/2024
Congratulations to Natalie for being selected as one of the 2025 CIRM Predoctoral Fellows at UCI! She will be working on stem cell-based models of myocardial infarction with in situ sensors of contractile forces. She will start as a CIRM Fellow by January 1st, 2025.
SUE'S COLLABORATIVE PAPER WITH PARAVASTU LAB IS PUBLISHED!
8/29/2024
Congratulations to Sue for her paper "Cooperative β-sheet coassembly controls intermolecular orientation of amphiphilic peptide-polydiacetylene conjugates" getting accepted and published in Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance! The work was done in collaboration with Prof. Anant Paravastu's group at Georgia Tech, where Sue was co-first author with Paravastu Lab graduate student Tarunya Rao Sudarshan. The paper is featured as part of the journal's special issue in "Heterogeneous Biomaterials and Cellular Systems."
ZEFAN'S SCIENCE ADVANCES PAPER IS PUBLISHED!
6/12/2024
Congratulations to Ze-Fan for his paper "Lattice-guided assembly of optoelectronically active π-conjugated peptides on 1D van der Waals single crystals" getting accepted and published in Science Advances! The work was done in collaboration with Prof. Maxx Arguilla's group at UCI Chemistry. Yuyao is a contributing author from our group.
CATHERINE SELECTED AS UROP/SURP FELLOW!
5/29/2024
Congratulations to Catherine for being selected as an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) fellow at UCI for summer 2024! She was selected as a part of the Call for Summer (SURP) Proposals, and as a recipient of the Hiestand Engineering Research Award and LAEP Award. She will be continuing her project with Yuyao on developing light-modulated in vitro biohybrid models.
KATIE AND NATALIE'S REVIEW PAPER IS PUBLISHED!
5/8/2024
Congratulations to Katie and Natalie for their review paper - Looking both ways: Electroactive biomaterials with bidirectional implications for dynamic cell-material crosstalk - now officially published in Biophysics Reviews as a Featured Article!
WELCOME LEO!
4/19/2024
We would like to officially welcome Dr. Leonardo Maver to the group! Coming from Politecnico di Milano & Center for NanoScience and Technology at the Italian Institute of Technology (Milan), he is joining as a postdoc and will be working on studying the impacts of optoelectronically generated stimuli on cardiac maturation.
ZEFAN SELECTED AS PART OF 2024 CAS FUTURE LEADERS TOP 100!
3/25/2024
Congratulations to Ze-Fan for being selected one of the Top 100 applicants to the 2024 CAS Future Leaders Program! This program by the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS), a division of the American Chemical Society, supports the growth of science leadership among early-career scientists since 2010 through opportunities that can grow their leadership skills, engage in scientific discourse, and connect with peer scientists and innovators from around the world.
BUBBLES RECEIVES NIH SUPPLEMENT GRANT!
3/8/2024
Congratulations to Bubbles for being awarded with an NIH supplement funding (3R01HL164348-01A1S1) to support her work with dielectrophoresis-based platforms for characterizing and generating enriched cardiomyocytes from peptide-photostimulated hiPSC-derived cell populations! The project is a continuation of the collaboration with Prof. Tayloria Adams (co-advisor). Bubbles will also be co-mentored by Prof. Abe Lee as part of this project.
CONGRATULATIONS, ZEFAN!
2/21/2024
Congratulations to Ze-Fan on his paper, "Selective Induction of Molecular Assembly to Tissue-Level Anisotropy on Peptide-Based Optoelectronic Cardiac Biointerfaces," which was published in Advanced Materials! Yuyao, Emil, and Natalie were contributing authors from the group. We also acknowledge our collaborators Hao-Tian Wu, Dr. Xin Fu, Prof. Jian Pei, and Prof. Albert Yee. This paper was selected for the Advanced Materials "Rising Stars" special collection. Congratulations to everyone involved!
WELCOME, SHENG WEI!
1/31/2024
We are excited to welcome Sheng Wei Tang to the group! She is a first-year ChAMP student and will be working on cell-interacting peptide assemblies capable of tunable energy transport in cellulo and as ex cellulo networks.
CONGRATULATIONS, RUSWEL!
12/20/2023
Congratulations to Ruswel for being selected as an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) fellow at UCI for 2023-24! He will be exploring bioprinting of porphyrin-based peptide materials with his mentor, Harrison.
WELCOME NEW UNDERGRADS!
10/2023
We have welcomed several undergraduate students this quarter! Maddie (left) is a second-year CBE student and will be working with Katie and Natalie. Catherine (middle) is a second-year BME student and will be working with Yuyao. Caleb is a third-year CBE and will be working with Sue.
CONGRATULATIONS, SUE!
8/8/2023
Congratulations to Sue on her paper, "Thermochromic Behavior of Polydiacetylene Nanomaterials Driven by Charged Peptide Amphiphiles," which was published in Biomacromolecules! This paper is part of the virtual special issue in Peptide Materials.
Yuyao Kuang was a contributing author in the group. We also acknowledge the other co-authors outside the group who helped with this work–– Dr. Dmitri Cordova, Alicia Robang, Kaleo Ogura, Prof. Anant Paravastu, and Prof. Maxx Arguilla. Congratulations to the team!
JOIN OUR RESEARCH GROUP!
Please contact Professor Herdeline Ardoña if you are interested to join our group. More details about our research group can be found on this page.