Kai Yuet/test



=Kai P. Yuet=

California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
1st Year Chemical Engineering PhD Candidate

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
S.B. in Chemical-Biological Engineering, 2009 S.B. in Biology, 2009

Dynamics of Biopolymers and Complex Fluids Group (2008-2009)
Microfluidic Synthesis and Self-Assembly of Hydrogel Particles

Over the past decade, advances in three-dimensional hydrogels have generated microstructures that successfully simulate cellular microenvironment with regards to optimal mechanical behavior and growth factor and nutrient delivery. Despite their promise in many tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications, hydrogel technology falls short of reconstructing the intricacies of physiological structures such as organs or blood vessels. The Doyle Lab has previously combined microfluidics and photo-mask lithography and has shown that this technique called “stop-flow lithography” (SFL) is efficacious in high-throughput synthesis of geometrically and chemically anisotropic microstructures. We hypothesize that SFL-derived microstructures can act as essential building blocks for precisely engineering complex hydrogels with novel architecture.


 * 1) Panda-Langmuir-2009 pmid=19253954
 * pdf, doi:10.1021/la8042445

MIT-Harvard Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (2007-2009)
Nanoparticle-Mediated Delivery of siRNAs for Cancer Therapy

Targeted therapies have the benefits of lower toxicity and an improved therapeutic ratio. Recently, RNAi/small interfering RNAs (siRNA), a new class of therapeutic, have generated much enthusiasm in their application to diseases, especially cancer. However, the generation of an optimal in vivo carrier is required in order for siRNAs to develop into a viable therapeutic. We are currently developing an siRNA delivery system for prostate cancer therapy that utilizes multifunctional polymeric nanoparticles to encapsulate and protect siRNAs from non-specific nuclease degradation and deliver siRNAs specifically to targets using aptamers, oligonucleotides that fold into unique confirmations and bind to proteins with great affinity.


 * 1) Chan-Biomaterials-2009 pmid=19111339
 * pdf, doi:10.1016/j.biomaterials.2008.12.013


 * 1) Wang-ChemMedChem-2008 pmid=18613203
 * pdf, 10.1002/cmdc.200800091

Massachusetts General Hospital (2006)
Alternative pre-mRNA Splicing

Splicing is the removal of non-coding regions of DNA, introns, from precursor messenger RNA (pre-mRNA)/heterogeneous nuclear RNA (hnRNA) in order to produce mature mRNAs for protein translation in eukaryotic cells and enables 3'-end processing, mRNA export, localization, and nonsense-mediated decay. Because alternative splicing substantially accounts for human proteome diversity, it is a desirable target relevant to many diseases. I am using Myocyte Enhancer Factor 2 (MEF2) genes as prototypes to study alternative splicing by developing an in vivo reporter of MEF2 splicing events that could be used to identify and evaluate cis-elements, factors, and signaling mechanisms that control splicing of these genes.

Los Alamos National Laboratory (2005)
High-Temperature Superconductivity

High-temperature superconducting tapes based on Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide (YBCO) coated conductors have the potential to transform the fields of electric power and high-energy physics. With YBCO conductor tapes nearing commercialization, there is a substantial need to characterize and optimize long-length coated conductors with higher current densities, longer tape length, and improved pinning properties. We are developing several position-dependent continuous critical measurement systems for studying tapes produced by various deposition methods.

Current Contact Info
Kai P. Yuet MIT Department of Chemical Engineering 77 Massachusetts Avenue Building 66-053 Cambridge, MA 02139

kpyuet [at] MIT.edu

