7/7 This opens the door to rational nanoparticle design for enzymes, useful in biocatalysis, diagnostics, biosensing, and antimicrobial therapy. Congratulations to 1st year student Yuanjie, who led this work, and Subrata, Neha, Gabriel, and Dylan who made key contributions!.

6/7: To show real-world impact, we focused on antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Pairing our best nanoparticle with lactoperoxidase, we disrupted biofilms and killed multidrug-resistant bacteria in vitro. 🦠💥.

5/7: The results? Surface chemistry matters, a lot. Some nanoparticles boosted enzyme activity by up to ~19-fold! 🔥 We then used this dataset to train ML models to predict which ligands features are important for observing enhancement.

4/7: Our idea: the surface chemistry of nanoparticles controls how enzymes behave. To test this, we built a library of surface-engineered nanoparticles and screened their effect on enzyme activity.

3/7: Prior studies have shown that some nanomaterials could enhance enzyme activity, but the effects were poorly understood and not predictable.

2/7: Enzymes power everything from drug manufacturing to food processing. But improving them usually means protein engineering—a slow, costly process. We asked: can we tune their environment instead?.

1/7: New preprint!. Our 1st run with machine learning + nanotech + biocatalysis: we designed nanoparticles that boost enzyme activity up to 19x, no protein engineering needed. A new path for biocatalysis!.🧬⚙️. 📄 #nanotech #biocatalysis #MachineLearning.

Late post but excited to share our new paper in @angew_chem, published open access!. We’ve developed molecular sensors, called CLIPs, that can detect enzymes involved in diseases like cancer and COVID-19—quickly, accurately, and at extremely low levels.

Excited about our 1st paper in Analytical Chemistry!. We report a simple, rapid, and label-free method to measure DNA coverage on nanoparticles, even when they're not centrifuge-friendly. No labels/toxic reagents.High-throughput.Takes <15 min.Low cost.

🚨 Heading to #Pacifichem2025? Join us in Honolulu for our symposium DNA-Based Nanomaterials at the Interface with Biology — Dec 15–20, 2025!. 🧬 Incredible speaker lineup. 📅 Abstracts due April 2: Please share widely!.

Congratulations to Raaz Patel on winning 1st place at GCURS @RiceUniversity!

RT @BeilsteinInst: We are excited to welcome @DevleenaSamanta @UTAustin as a member of our inaugural #EarlyCareerAdvisoryBoard #ECAB for #B….

Excited to co-organize with Katherine Bujold @McMasterU and @_YoungeunKim at @SeoulNatUni. @UTChemistry.

Excited to organize the "DNA-Based Nanomaterials at the Interface with Biology" session at @Pacifichem 2025 w Katherine Bujold and @_YoungeunKim!. We’ve an amazing lineup of invited speakers! Submissions are open till April 2. Join us in Honolulu, HI! . Please spread the word!.

Students in The Samanta Laboratory make winning awards look as easy as 1-2-3! . Congratulations to @ImonPhukan , @atri_1998 , and Seungheon—Imon's 1st, Atri's 2nd, and Seungheon's 3rd Faraday Teaching Award. Well deserved! 👏🏆 . #ProudAdvisor.@UTChemistry.

@JeetainMittal @TAMU This work was done by @Imsubratapandit, @atri_1998, and Seungheon Lee from @UTChemistry in collaboration with Busra Ozguney and @JeetainMittal from @TAMU. #nano.

@JeetainMittal @TAMU This study highlights the potential of nanoparticle surface engineering to activate enzymes at interfaces in a tunable manner, offering a promising alternative to protein engineering for developing biocatalysts.

@JeetainMittal @TAMU Furthermore, PGNPs proved to be a versatile platform for boosting peroxidase activity of multiple heme-containing proteins such as cytochrome c, lactoperoxidase, hemoglobin, and catalase by 10.4-, 13.4-, 3.9-, and 4.2-fold, respectively.

Molecular dynamics simulations by Busra Ozguney @JeetainMittal at @TAMU provided insights into the molecular basis of these findings, revealing the preferred orientation of enzymes upon adsorption and key interaction patterns between the enzyme and peptide ligands.

In this study, we used peptide-functionalized gold nanoparticles (PGNPs) as a programmable platform to investigate how surface functionalization affects enzyme activity.