About

Danielle Tullman-Ercek is the James N. and Nancy J. Farley Professor in Manufacturing and Entrepreneurship and a Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University. She is also the Director of the Master of Science in Biotechnology Program. Her research focuses on building biomolecular devices for applications in medicine and the environment, with particular emphasis on highly organized self-assembling proteins, which are the nanoscale building blocks of biology. Her lab investigates the fundamental principles governing the precise organization of proteins at the nanoscale, how this organization enhances biochemical process performance, and how these protein assemblies can be manipulated to gain new or improved functions in living and non-living systems. Current model systems include protein containers such as viral capsids and bacterial microcompartments, as well as membrane protein machines like the type III secretion system. Her work often leads to hypothesis-driven insights into native systems through engineering these biomolecular assemblies.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Nanotechnology
• Process engineering
• Physics
• Artificial Intelligence
• Materials science
• Engineering
• Biological system
• Composite material
• Mechanical engineering
• Chemistry
• Chromatography
• Organic chemistry
• Telecommunications

Selected publications

• High Throughput Centrifugal Adhesion Screening Test for Soft Materials

  2021

  • Computer Science
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Nanotechnology

  <p>High-throughput screening of material mechanical properties has the potential to transform material science research in both aiding in material discovery and developing predictive models. However, the development of these assays is inherently difficult with only a few methods and tools reported, and the mounting demand for enormous material property datasets to develop predictive models is unfulfilled by the limited throughput of the current techniques. In particular, equipment cost and instrument limitations prohibit the widespread generation of large material property datasets. We address this problem by developing a high-throughput colorimetric method for testing mechanical adhesion using a common laboratory centrifuge, multi-well plates and microparticles. The technique uses centrifugation to apply a homogenous mechanical detachment force across the samples in the multi-well plate. We also develop a high-throughput sample deposition method to prepare films with uniform thickness in each well, minimizing well-to-well variability in measurements. Our centrifugal adhesion testing method can differentiate polymer films with variate adhesion strengths and shows excellent agreement with the probe tack adhesion test. To illustrate the throughput and consistency of the overall process, we displayed a pattern on a multi-well plate by depositing two different formulations and performing the centrifugal test. We can achieve a throughput of thousands of samples per run, and it is limited only by the number of wells in the plates. With its simplicity, low cost and large dynamic range, this high-throughput method has the potential to change the landscape of adhesive material characterization.</p>

  DOI

• Multiplexed Mass Spectrometry of Individual Ions Improves Measurement of Proteoforms and Their Complexes

  Research Square (Research Square) · 2021 · 10 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Chemistry
  • Computer Science
  DOI

• Bacterial microcompartments: tiny organelles with big potential

  Current Opinion in Microbiology · 2021 · 54 citations

  • Biology
  • Computational biology
  • Cell biology
  DOI

• High Throughput Centrifugal Adhesion Screening Test for Soft Materials

  2021

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Nanotechnology

  High-throughput screening of material mechanical properties has the potential to transform material science research in both aiding in material discovery and developing predictive models. However, the development of these assays is inherently difficult with only a few methods and tools reported, and the mounting demand for enormous material property datasets to develop predictive models is unfulfilled by the limited throughput of the current techniques. In particular, equipment cost and instrument limitations prohibit the widespread generation of large material property datasets. We address this problem by developing a high-throughput colorimetric method for testing mechanical adhesion using a common laboratory centrifuge, multi-well plates and microparticles. The technique uses centrifugation to apply a homogenous mechanical detachment force across the samples in the multi-well plate. We also develop a high-throughput sample deposition method to prepare films with uniform thickness in each well, minimizing well-to-well variability in measurements. Our centrifugal adhesion testing method can differentiate polymer films with variate adhesion strengths and shows excellent agreement with the probe tack adhesion test. To illustrate the throughput and consistency of the overall process, we displayed a pattern on a multi-well plate by depositing two different formulations and performing the centrifugal test. We can achieve a throughput of thousands of samples per run, and it is limited only by the number of wells in the plates. With its simplicity, low cost and large dynamic range, this high-throughput method has the potential to change the landscape of adhesive material characterization.

  DOI

• Dynamic Control of Gene Expression with Riboregulated Switchable Feedback Promoters

  ACS Synthetic Biology · 2021 · 42 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Computational biology
  • Biology

  to regulate multiple feedback networks and apply them to control the output of two metabolic pathways. We envision that rSFPs will become a valuable tool for flexible and dynamic control of gene expression in metabolic engineering, biological therapeutic production, and many other applications.

  DOI

• Multiplexed mass spectrometry of individual ions improves measurement of proteoforms and their complexes

  Nature Methods · 2020 · 190 citations

  • Chemistry
  • Chemical physics
  • Materials science
  DOI

Frequent coauthors

• Carolyn Mills

  2 shared

• Qifeng Wang

  Beihang University

  2 shared

• Johanna Kann

  2 shared

• Muzhou Wang

  Northwestern University

  2 shared

• Yusu Chen

  Northwestern University

  2 shared

• Kenneth R. Shull

  Northwestern University

  2 shared

• Daniel Brauer

  Instituto de Filosofía

  2 shared

• Ping Yip

  Thermo Fisher Scientific (United States)

  1 shared

Similar researchers at Northwestern University

• Mercouri G. Kanatzidish-205
• Chad Mirkinh-189
• Omar Farhah-184
• Tobin J. Marksh-176
• Joseph Hupph-171