Scott Medina

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Scott Medina

Research Summary

Design of bio-inspired functional materials that serve as new tools in precision medicine. Understanding how peptides and proteins assemble at natural and non-natural interfaces to form organized structures with unique biochemical functions. The design of nano- and micro-scale biomaterials to develop new biosensing and therapeutic strategies to treat infectious disease, inflammation and cancer.

Huck Graduate Students

Huck Affiliations

Links

Most Recent Publications

Non-invasive ultrasonic debridement of implant biofilms via hydrogen-sulfide releasing peptide nanoemulsions

Harminder Singh, Diptomit Biswas, Ji Ho Park, Mary E. Landmesser, Dino J. Ravnic, Scott H. Medina, 2025, Biomaterials

Ultrasonic disruption of circulating amyloid β aggregates via phase-change peptide nanoemulsions

Inhye Kim, Scott H. Medina, 2025, Biomaterials

Bactericidal Metal-Organic Gallium Frameworks - Synthesis to Application

Fellype Diorgennes Cordeiro Gomes, Mary Cristina Ferreira Alves, Severino Alves Júnior, Scott H. Medina, 2025, Molecular Pharmaceutics on p. 638-646

Heat stable and intrinsically sterile liquid protein formulations

Atip Lawanprasert, Harminder Singh, Sopida Pimcharoen, Mariangely González Vargas, Arshiya Dewan, Girish S. Kirimanjeswara, Scott H. Medina, 2024, Nature Communications

Synthetic Colonic Mucus Enables the Development of Modular Microbiome Organoids

Michael A. Miller, Scott Medina, 2024, Advanced Functional Materials

Decoupling Fluorous Protein Coatings Yield Heat-Stable and Intrinsically Sterile Bioformulations

Harminder Singh, Atip Lawanprasert, None Utkarsh, Sopida Pimcharoen, Arshiya Dewan, Dane Rahoi, Girish S. Kirimanjeswara, Scott H. Medina, 2024, ACS applied materials & interfaces on p. 38893-38904

Life at the interface: Engineering bio-nanomaterials through interfacial molecular self-assembly

Michael A. Miller, Scott Medina, 2024, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Nanomedicine and Nanobiotechnology

Twinkling Peptide Nanoemulsions Enable Precision Ultrasound Detection of Atherosclerotic Plaques

Inhye Kim, Jacob C. Elliott, Atip Lawanprasert, Anthony M. Koehle, Grace M. Wood, Maria Rita Castro, Julianna C. Simon, Scott H. Medina, 2024, Advanced Functional Materials on p. 2415609

Real-Time, In Situ Imaging of Macrophages via Phase-Change Peptide Nanoemulsions

Inhye Kim, Inhye Kim^, Jacob Elliott, Atip Lawanprasert, Atip Lawanprasert^, Grace Wood, Julianna C. Simon, Scott Medina*, 2023, Small

The manifold role of octapeptide repeats in prion protein assembly

Amy H. Guadagno, Scott H. Medina, 2023, Peptide Science

Most-Cited Papers

A multiphase transitioning peptide hydrogel for suturing ultrasmall vessels

Daniel J. Smith, Gabriel A. Brat, Scott H. Medina, Dedi Tong, Yong Huang, Johanna Grahammer, Georg J. Furtmüller, Byoung Chol Oh, Katelyn J. Nagy-Smith, Piotr Walczak, Gerald Brandacher, Joel P. Schneider, 2016, Nature Nanotechnology on p. 95-102

Rapid fabrication of precise high-throughput filters from membrane protein nanosheets

Yu-Ming Tu, Y Yu, Woochul Song, Tingwei Ren, Yue-xiao Shen, Ratul Chowdhury, Prasangi Rajapaksha, Tyler Culp, Laxmicharan Samineni, Chao Lang, L Chao, Alina Thokkadam, Drew Carson, Yuxuan Dai, Arwa Mukthar, Miaoci Zhang, Andrey Parshin, Janna Sloand, J Sloand^, Scott Medina, Mariusz Grzelakowski, Dibakar Bhattacharya, William Phillip, Enrique D. Gomez, Robert J. Hickey, Yinai Wei, Manish Kumar, M Kumar*, 2020, Nature Materials on p. 347-354

An Intrinsically Disordered Peptide Facilitates Non-Endosomal Cell Entry

Scott H. Medina, Stephen E. Miller, Allison I. Keim, Alexander P. Gorka, Martin J. Schnermann, Joel P. Schneider, 2016, Angewandte Chemie - International Edition on p. 3369-3372

Identification of a mechanogenetic link between substrate stiffness and chemotherapeutic response in breast cancer

Scott H. Medina, Brian Bush, Maggie Cam, Emily Sevcik, Frank W. DelRio, Kaustav Nandy, Joel P. Schneider, 2019, Biomaterials on p. 1-11

Enhanced immunostimulatory effects of DNA-encapsulated peptide hydrogels

Scott H. Medina, Sandra Li, O. M.Zack Howard, Micah Dunlap, Anna Trivett, Joel P. Schneider, Joost J. Oppenheim, 2015, Biomaterials on p. 545-553

Influence of hydrophobic face amino acids on the hydrogelation of -hairpin peptide amphiphiles

Christopher M. Micklitsch, Scott Medina, Tuna Yucel, Katelyn J. Nagy-Smith, Darrin J. Pochan, Joel P. Schneider, Joel Schneider*, 2015, Macromolecules on p. 1281-1288

Bioresponsive peptide-polysaccharide nanogels — A versatile delivery system to augment the utility of bioactive cargo

Andrew W. Simonson, Andrew Simonson^, Atip Lawanprasert, Atip Lawanprasert^, Tyler D.P. Goralski, Kenneth C. Keiler, Scott Medina*, 2019, Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology, and Medicine on p. 391-400

Fluorous Phase-Directed Peptide Assembly Affords Nano-Peptisomes Capable of Ultrasound-Triggered Cellular Delivery

Scott H. Medina, Megan S. Michie, Stephen E. Miller, Martin J. Schnermann, Joel P. Schneider, 2017, Angewandte Chemie - International Edition on p. 11404-11408

Ultrasound-Guided Cytosolic Protein Delivery via Transient Fluorous Masks

Janna Sloand, Janna Sloand^, Eric Cook, Theodore Nguyen, Scott A. Zinck, Tawanda Zimudzi, Erik C. Cook, Scott Zinck, S Showalter, Tawanda J. Zimudzi, Scott Schowalter, Scott A. Showalter, Julianna Simon, S Medina, Adam B. Glick, Julianna Simon, Scott Medina*, 2020, ACS Nano on p. 4061-4073

Synthesis and cell-selective antitumor properties of amino acid conjugated tumor-associated carbohydrate antigen-coated gold nanoparticles

Souvik Biswas, Scott H. Medina, Joseph J. Barchi, 2015, Carbohydrate Research on p. 93-101

News Articles Featuring Scott Medina

Feb 22, 2025

Vaccine refrigeration could become optional, thanks to Penn State team

Vaccine refrigeration — which can be expensive and logistically challenging, but still needed — could become unnecessary, thanks to research from a Penn State team.

Full Article

Jan 17, 2025

Discovery May Eliminate Need for Vaccine Refrigeration

A new storage technique can keep protein-based drugs and vaccines stable without keeping them cold.

Full Article

Jan 16, 2025

Discovery could eliminate need to refrigerate vaccines and protein-based drugs

A new storage technique can keep protein-based drugs and vaccines stable without keeping them cold. The discovery, led by researchers at Penn State, could eliminate the need for refrigeration for hundreds of life-saving medicines like insulin, monoclonal antibodies and viral vaccines.

Full Article

Dec 06, 2024

Tracking immune cell brain cancer therapies with ultrasound

National Cancer Institute awards biomedical engineering researchers $3.2M to study immune cell-based cancer treatment.

Full Article

Apr 15, 2024

Huck Leadership Fellows selected for 2024-25

For the 2024-2025 academic year, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences has appointed Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering Scott Medina, Professor of Statistics Lingzhou Xue, and Associate Professor of Surgery Dino Ravnic to be Huck Leadership Fellows.

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Mar 27, 2024

Synthetic material could improve ease and cut cost of gut microbiome research

A team of Penn State researchers has developed a new synthetic material that could enable scientists to more easily study how microorganisms interact with the gastrointestinal (GI) system.

Full Article

Sep 20, 2023

Tiny bubbles could reveal immune cell secrets and improve treatments

Penn State researchers are developing a novel bubble-based technique to watch immune cells at work.

Full Article

Jan 05, 2023

Controlled, localized delivery of blood thinner may improve blood clot treatment

Heparin has long been used as a blood thinner, or anticoagulant, for patients with blood clotting disorders or after surgery to prevent complications. But the medication remains difficult to dose correctly, potentially leading to overdosing or underdosing.

Full Article

Apr 06, 2022

First round of funded projects announced from the Benkovic Research Initiative

Four projects have been announced as recipients of funding from the Patricia and Stephen Benkovic Research Initiative, which supports risky, highly innovative investigation at the interface of chemistry and the life sciences.

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Mar 17, 2022

Inhalable aerogel triggers immunity to COVID-19 in mice, may block transmission

An inhalable "aerogel" loaded with DNA that encodes for the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein successfully induces an immune response against COVID-19 in the lungs of mice, according to new research conducted at Penn State.

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Jul 15, 2021

Engineers find imaging technique could become treatment for deep vein thrombosis

Penn State College of Engineering researchers set out to develop technology capable of localizing and imaging blood clots in deep veins. Turns out their work may not only identify blood clots, but it may also be able to treat them.

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Jan 06, 2021

Smart Antibacterial Avoids Collateral Damage, Potential Blowback

Calling for the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics can be as indiscriminate as saying, “Kill them all; let God sort them out.” Either way, one may eliminate the good along with the bad, courting blowback, that is, repercussions that are as unwelcome as they are unpredictable.

Full Article

Jan 06, 2021

Resist the resistance: Fighting the good fight against bacteria

In an effort to reduce the potential infection-caused 10 million deaths worldwide, Penn State researcher Scott Medina has developed a peptide, or small protein, that can target a specific pathogen without damaging the good bacteria that bolsters the immune system.

Full Article