Esser-Kahn Group

We at the Esser-Kahn lab believe in interdisciplinarity: our team of biologists, chemists, and biophyicists consider how putting our minds together can improve thinking across many areas of engineering and science.

In immuno-engineering, we are answering the question, "What makes a good vaccine elicit strong protection?"  To investigate this, we use engineered manipulation to understand how innate immune cells process information to improve the protective response.  These biological insights allow our chemists to design new vaccine components and delivery systems to make vaccines safer, cheaper, and more effective.

At the same time, our materials scientists are building new materials that are modeled after materials in the biological world.  Many man-made materials are disposable and single-purpose--leading to failure and waste--while materials in nature are robust, long-lived, and customized.  We are creating materials that can adapt to their environments and train themselves dynamically by incorporating principles from our natural world.

Finally, we are interested in where we will put all the CO2 in the world and are working on developing materials and tools to improve CO2 capture and sequestration.

Please come in and click around to understand who we are, what we are interested in, and how we operate. We are always interested in a good question or a new concept. If you need a chemistry collaborator, or have a chemical question, contact us.  Thanks for stopping by!