APPOINTMENT    Aug. 2004 – present

Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY.

Assistant Professor (Courtesy appointment), Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY.

PROFESSIONAL PREPARATION

• Chaired organic Section in the 232nd American Chemical Society National Meeting 2006 at San Francisco, CA, Session: New Reactions and Methodology.
• Mentored two high school students and over 7 REU students in research from 2004-2008.

As a Principal Investigator:

Ph.D. GRADUATE: 4
Preeti Sejwal (2008), Now a Scientist at Bristol Myers Squibb, Syracuse, NY
Thesis: I. Water-Driven Chemoselective Reactions of Squarate Serivatives with Amino Acids and Peptides: Mechanism and Applications. II. Biocompatible Hydrogels: Transferring Bio-inert Chemistry from Surfaces to 3-Dimensional Materials.

Karen A. Simon (Defended on July 2nd, 2009),
Thesis: I. Water-in-Water Emulsion and Templated Synthesis of Heterogeneous Biocatalyst with Enhanced Activity. II. Enhancing Anti-fouling Chemistry for Confining Mammalian Cell Adhesion by Gradient Nanotopography

Erik A. Burton (expected, 2010),
Thesis: Chemical Gradients and Bioactive Hydrogels for Mechanistic Studies of Protein Binding and Cell Adhesion

Sri Kamesh Narasimhan (expected, 2010),
Thesis: Structured Unnatural Molecules: Inducing molecular folding and enabling matured mammalian cell adhesion

MASTER GRADUATE: 1    Akshay Shah (2007),

TOTAL POSTDOC MENTORED: 7
Kejun Chen, Yongbin Han, Jun Li, Shifa Zhu, Lei Wu, Mengnan Qu, Fei Che

COLLABORATORS

21. Induced Folding by Chiral Non-Planar Aromatics Sri Kamesh Narasimhan, Deborah J. Kerwood, Lei Wu, Jun Li, Rosina Lombardi, Teresa B. Freedman* and Yan-Yeung Luk* J. Org. Chem., 2009, 74(18), 7023-7033.

20. Inhibition of of Candida albicans Growth by Natural and Synthetic Brominated Furanones Miao Duo, Yan-Yeung Luk*, and Dacheng Ren* Appl. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 2009, Accepted

19. Selective Immobilization of Peptides Exclusively via N-Terminus Cysteines by Water-Driven Reactions on Surfaces Preeti Sejwal, Sri Kamesh Narasimhan, Deepali Prashar, Debjyoti Bandyopadhyay and Yan-Yeung Luk* J. Org. Chem., 2009, 74(17), 6843-6846.

18. Non-Amphiphilic Assembly in Water: Polymorphic Nature, Thread Structure and Thermodynamic Incompatibility Lei Wu, Jyotsana Lal, Karen A. Simon, Erik A. Burton and Yan-Yeung Luk* J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2009, 131, 7430-7443.

17. Prolonged Control of Patterned Biofilm Formation by Bio-inert Surface Chemistry Shuyu Hou, Erik A. Burton, Ricky Lei Wu, Yan-Yeung Luk* and Dacheng Ren* Chem. Commun., 2009, 10, 1207-1209.

16. Molecular Gradients of Bio-inertness Reveal Mechanistic Difference between Mammalian Cell Adhesion and Bacterial Biofilm Formation Erik A. Burton, Karen A. Simon, Shuyu Hou, Dacheng Ren* and Yan-Yeung Luk* Langmuir, 2009, 25, 1547-1553.

15. Utilizing the high dielectric constant of water: efficient synthesis of amino acid-derivatized cyclobutenones Jun Li, Yongbin Han, Teresa B. Freedman, Shifa Zhu, Deborah J. Kerwood and Yan-Yeung Luk*, Tet. Lett., 2008, 49, 2128-2131. » full article

14. Chiral Molecules with Polyhedral T, O or I Symmetry: Theoretical Solution to A Difficult Problem in Stereochemistry Sri Kamesh Narasimhan, Xiaoying Lu and Yan-Yeung Luk* Chirality 2008, 20, 878-884. » full article

13. Identifying the important structural elements of brominated furanones for inhibiting biofilm formation by Escherichia coli Yongbin Han, Shuyu Hou, Karen A. Simon, Dacheng Ren* and Yan-Yeung Luk*, Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett., 2008, 18, 1006-1010. » full article

12. Water-Driven Chemoselective Reaction of Squarate Derivatives with Amino Acids and Peptides Preeti Sejwal, Yongbin Han, Akshay Shah and Yan-Yeung Luk*, Org. Lett., 2007, 9, 4897-4900. » full article

11. Enhancing Cell Adhesion and Confinement by Gradient Nanotopography Karen A. Simon, Erik A. Burton, Yongbin Han, Jun Li, Anny Huang and Yan-Yeung Luk*, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2007, 129, 4892-4893. » full article

10. Water-in-Water Emulsions Stabilized by Non-Amphiphilic Interactions: Polymer-Dispersed Lyotropic Liquid Crystals Karen A. Simon, Preeti Sejwal, Ryan B. Gerecht, Yan-Yeung Luk*, Langmuir, 2007, 23, 1453-8. » full article

9. A Biocompatible Surfactant with Folded Hydrophilic Head Group: Enhancing the Stability of Self-Inclusion Complexes of Ferrocenyl in a β-Cyclodextrin Unit by Bond Rigidity Yongbin Han, Kejun Cheng, Karen A. Simon, Yanmei Lan, Preeti Sejwal, Yan-Yeung Luk*, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2006, 128, 13913-20. » full article

8. Inhibiting Escherichia Coli Biofilm Formation by Self-Assembled Monolayers of Functional Alkanethiols on Gold Shuyu Hou, Erik A. Burton, Karen A. Simon, Dustin Blodgett, Yan-Yeung Luk* and Dacheng Ren*, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 2007, 73, 4300-4307. » full article

7. Enhanced Mammalian Cell Adhesion Mediated by Squaramide Derivatives Sri Kamesh Narasimhan, Preeti Sejwal and Yan-Yeung Luk* Submitted

6. Principles for Amphiphile-Free Templated Synthesis: Structural Hierarchy and Biocatalysis Karen A. Simon, Erik A. Burton and Yan-Yeung Luk* Submitted

5. Controlling Thread Assemblies of Pharmaceutical Compounds in Liquid Crystal Phase by Using Functionalized Nanotopography Karen A. Simon, Erik A. Burton, Lei Wu and Yan-Yeung Luk* Submitted

4. Stereochemical Control of Mammalian Cell Adhesion and Biofilm Formation on Surfaces Presenting Chiral Polyols Debjyoti Bandyopadhyay, Deepali Prashar and Yan-Yeung Luk* in preparation.

3. Controlling Mammalian Cell Adhesion on Hydrogel Materials: Bio-inertness of organic kosmotropes Debjyoti Bandyopadhyay#, Preeti Sejwal#, Deepali Prashar and Yan-Yeung Luk* in preparation.

2. Crystallizing Proteins by Nonamphiphilic Liquid Crystals: Correlation between Mesophase and Protein Assembly Karen A. Simon, Eric Falcone, Lei Wu, Ulrich Englich, Yan-Yeung Luk* in preparation.

1. Assembly of Proteorhodopsin Membrane Complex Promoted by Nonamphiphilic Liquid Crystals. Karen A. Simon, Laura Pate, Lei Wu, Ulrich Englich, Hongjun Liang* and Yan-Yeung Luk* b>in preparation.

PUBLICATIONS FROM Ph.D. AND POSTDOCTORAL PERIODS

1. Luk, Y.-Y. and N.L. Abbott, Surface-Driven Switching of Liquid Crystals Using Redox-Active Groups on Electrodes. Science, 2003. 301(5633): p. 623-626.
2. Luk, Y.-Y., M. Kato, and M. Mrksich, Self-Assembled Monolayers of Alkanethiolates Presenting Mannitol Groups Are Inert to Protein Adsorption and Cell Attachment. Langmuir, 2000. 16(24): p. 9604-9608.
3. Luk, Y.-Y., M.L. Tingey, K.A. Dickson, R.T. Raines, and N.L. Abbott, Imaging the Binding Ability of Proteins Immobilized on Surfaces with Different Orientations by Using Liquid Crystals. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2004. 126(29): p. 9024-9032.
4. Luk, Y.-Y., C.-H. Jang, L.-L. Cheng, B.A. Israel, and N.L. Abbott, Influence of lyotropic liquid crystals on the ability of antibodies to bind to surface-immobilized antigens. Chem. Mater., 2005. 17(19): p. 4774-4782.
5. Luk, Y.-Y., M.L. Tingey, D.J. Hall, B.A. Israel, C.J. Murphy, P.J. Bertics, and N.L. Abbott, Using liquid crystals to amplify protein-receptor interactions: Design of surfaces with nanometer-scale topography that present histidine-tagged protein receptors. Langmuir, 2003. 19(5): p. 1671-1680.
6. Luk, Y.-Y. and N.L. Abbott, Applications of functional surfactants. Curr. Opin. Colloid Interface Sci., 2002. 7(5,6): p. 267-275.
7. Luk, Y.-Y., S. Campbell, N. Abbott, and C. Murphy, Non-toxic thermotropic liquid crystals for use with mammalian cells. Liq. Cryst., 2004. 31(5): p. 611-621.
8. Luk, Y.-Y., K.-L. Yang, K. Cadwell, and N.L. Abbott, Deciphering the interactions between liquid crystals and chemically functionalized surfaces: Role of hydrogen bonding on orientations of liquid crystals. Surf. Sci., 2004. 570(1-2): p. 43-56.
9. Luk, Y.-Y., N.L. Abbott, J.N. Crain, and F.J. Himpsel, Dipole-induced structure in aromatic-terminated self-assembled monolayers - A study by near edge x-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy. J. Chem. Phys., 2004. 120(22): p. 10792-10798.
10. Brake, J.M., M.K. Daschner, Y.-Y. Luk, and N.L. Abbott, Biomolecular Interactions at Phospholipid-Decorated Surfaces of Liquid Crystals. Science, 2003. 302(5653): p. 2094-2098.
11. Tingey, M.L., Y.-Y. Luk, and N.L. Abbott, Orientations of liquid crystals on chemically functionalized surfaces that possess gradients in nanometer-scale topography. Adv. Mater., 2002. 14(17): p. 1224-1227.
12. Cheng, L.-L., Y.-Y. Luk, C.J. Murphy, B.A. Israel, and N.L. Abbott, Compatibility of lyotropic liquid crystals with viruses and mammalian cells that support the replication of viruses. Biomaterials, 2005. 26(34): p. 7173-7182.
13. Tercero Espinoza, L.A., K.R. Schumann, Y.-Y. Luk, B.A. Israel, and N.L. Abbott, Orientational Behavior of Thermotropic Liquid Crystals on Surfaces Presenting Electrostatically Bound Vesicular Stomatitis Virus. Langmuir, 2004. 20(6): p. 2375-2385.
14. Li, H., Y.-Y. Luk, and M. Mrksich, Catalytic Asymmetric Dihydroxylation by Gold Colloids Functionalized with Self-Assembled Monolayers. Langmuir, 1999. 15(15): p. 4957-4959.
15. Himpsel, F.J., J.L. McChesney, J.N. Crain, A. Kirakosian, V. Perez-Dieste, N.L. Abbott, Y.-Y. Luk, P.F. Nealey, and D.Y. Petrovykh, Stepped Silicon Surfaces as Templates for One-Dimensional Nanostructures. J. Phys. Chem. B, 2004. 108(38): p. 14484-14490.
16. Zheng, F., V. Perez-Dieste, J.L. McChesney, Y.-Y. Luk, N.L. Abbott, and F.J. Himpsel, Detection and switching of the oxidation state of Fe in a self-assembled monolayer. Surf. Sci., 2005. 587(3): p. L191-L196.

1. Enhanced Bio-Assays by Using Gradient Nanotopography Inventors: Y.-Y. Luk, K. A. Simons, E. A. Burton (Syracuse University); (Filed 2006).
2. A new class of antagonists for intergrin proteins as therapeutic agents Inventors: Y.-Y. Luk, S. Zhu, P. Sejwal, (Syracuse University); filed.
3. Biocatalytic Materials Built by Water-in-Water Emulsion Inventors: Y.-Y. Luk, Karen A. Simon, Dacheng Ren, (Syracuse University); (submitted 2007).

Gordon Conference: Biointerface Science (October 22-27, 2006)
Les Diablerets Conference Center, Les Diablerets, Switzerland

Gordon Conference: Organic Thin Films (July 10-15, 2005)
Salve Regina University, Newport, RI

» download a PDF version of Luk's CV