Ramya Kumar’s Research

Previously, Professor Ramya Kumar was a postdoctoral associate at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities where she developed materiomics workflows to accelerate the discovery of polymeric vectors for gene delivery. 

Polymers are poised to bridge technological and regulatory barriers hindering the clinical translation of cellular, protein and gene therapeutics. Thanks to rapid advances in controlled radical polymerization, we can precisely tailor chemical and architectural design parameters to access myriad properties and multifunctional polymers. Yet, synthetic advances have not been accompanied by fundamental knowledge connecting polymer design decisions to interfacial properties, and the ultimate biological performance achieved by polymeric biomaterials such as coatings and delivery vehicles. In order to create discovery pipelines for clinically useful and affordable biomaterials, the Kumar lab will develop (1) combinatorial design strategies to accelerate polymeric biomaterial discovery (2) process intensification techniques to improve the physical properties of nanoassemblies formed between therapeutic payloads and polymers, and (3) synthetic cell culture substrates to promote efficient polymer-mediated delivery of gene editing constructs.

Dr. Kumar is a new faculty member, starting at Mines in Spring 2022.

More information about Dr. Kumar can be found on her faculty page.

Poster