Jacqueline Deirmenjian is a rising fourth-year undergraduate student at the University of Chicago, working toward a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 2018. Prior to coming to the University of Chicago, she conducted nanoscience research on molecular self-assembly at the UCLA California NanoSystems Institute, under the mentorship of its director, Paul Weiss, PhD. She has also participated in a summer REU program at Northwestern University's International Institute for Nanotechnology, studying pH-Responsive PA Polymer Hybrids, under the direction of Samuel Stupp, PhD. She will be working as a research assistant in the Tirrell lab with Handan Acar, studying therapeutic drug delivery with peptide amphiphiles.
Jacqueline Deirmenjian is working with Handan Acar on the molecular engineering of the controlled enzyme-stimuli release of the therapeutics from amphiphilic delivery platforms. Her study covers the fundamentals of enzyme-substrate interactions and control of them by using a variety of chemical tools. This controlled release can be used to engineer different platforms for diagnostics and therapeutics.