The Haynes Research Group

Haynes Lab Group Members

Haynes Group in January 2013

Principal Investigator: Dr. Christy L. Haynes

Christy completed her undergraduate work at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN (1998) with a major in Chemistry and minors in Mathematics and Spanish. Christy's doctoral work was done at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL (2003) under the direction of Richard P. Van Duyne. Her doctoral thesis title is "Fundamentals and Applications of Nanoparticle Optics and Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering." Before arriving at the University of Minnesota, Christy performed postdoctoral research in the laboratory of R. Mark Wightman at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2005). Her efforts in the Wightman lab focused on applying microelectrode amperometry to probe single cell exocytosis.

Dr. Haynes' curriculum vitae is available.

Photo credit: Steve Niedorf, 2009.

Graduate Student: Audrey Meyer, Joined in Fall '08

Audrey is a fifth year graduate student and a recipient of the NSF Graduate Fellowship and a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. While in the Haynes lab, she is working to develop MS analysis methods for the mast cell and platlet secreteome/lipidome.

Graduate Student: Donghyuk Kim, Joined in Fall '08

Donghyuk is a fifth year graduate student. While in the Haynes lab, he is working to build a microfluidic model of the immune system and explore how immune cells communicate with one another.

Graduate Student: Benjamin Manning, Joined in Fall '08

Ben is a fifth year graduate student who has worked as Chemical Biology Trainee (2010-2012) and is a recipient of a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. While in the Haynes lab, he is working to study chemical messenger delivery in abnormal skin and peritoneal cells.

Graduate Student: Solaire Finkenstaedt-Quinn, Joined in Fall '10

Solaire is a third year graduate student. While in the Haynes lab, she is working to explore fundamentals of human platelet chemical messenger storage and secretion, with a focus on imaging techniques.

Graduate Student: Katie Hurley (née Stevens), Joined in Fall '10

Katie is a third year graduate student. While in the Haynes lab, she is working to build multifunctional drug delivery nanoparticles. Katie holds a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to support her research.

Katie's curriculum vitae is available.

Graduate Student: Antonio Campos, Joined in Fall '11

Tony is a fourth year graduate student who recently transitioned to the Haynes group. While in the Haynes lab, he is working to develop SERS sensors for detection of bloodborne protein species.

Graduate Student: Ian Gunsolus, Joined in Fall '12

Ian is a second year graduate student and trainee on the Biotechnology Training Grant. While in the Haynes lab, he is exploring environmental nanotoxicity in a bacteria model.

Graduate Student: Xiaojie Wu, Joined in Fall '12

Xiaojie is a second year graduate student. While in the Haynes lab, he is developing microfluidic platforms to study immune cell interactions in complex, dynamic environments.

Graduate Student: Samuel Egger, Joined in Fall '13

Sam is a first year graduate student. While in the Haynes lab, he is working to synthesize mesoporous silica nanoparticles for both biomedical and sensing purposes.

Graduate Student: Sarah Gruba, Joined in Fall '13

Sarah is a first year graduate student. While in the Haynes lab, she is focussing on both single cell and mass spectrometric analysis of platelet secretion.

Graduate Student: Tian (Autumn) Qiu, Joined in Fall '13

Tian (Autumn) is a first year graduate student. While in the Haynes lab, she will be studying environmental nanotoxicity.

Graduate Student: Victoria Szlag, Joined in Fall '13

Victoria is a first year student who is co-advised by Professor Theresa Reineke. While in the Haynes lab, she is studying the use of glycopolymers to stabilized mesoporous silica nanoparticles for biomedical applications.

Graduate Student: Joe Buchman, Joined for Summer '13

Joe is an incoming first year student who will work in the Haynes lab for (at least) summer 2013. For the summer, he will be mentored by Hattie and Sam to study drug loading and release from mesoporous silica nanoparticles.

Postdoctoral Researcher: Dr. Hattie Ring

Hattie earned her undergraduate degrees at the Iowa State University (2007) with majors in Physics and Chemistry. She then completed her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley (2012), where she worked on NMR and MRI applications of xenon hyperpolarization and atomic magnetometry in Alex Pines' group. While in the Haynes lab, she is working on multifunctional drug delivery nanoparticles and the development of SERS sensors for the detection of analytes in the bloodstream. (photo credit: David Trease)

Postdoctoral Researcher: Dr. Ashish Datt

Ashish earned his PhD with Dr. Sarah Larsen at the University of Iowa, where he studied adsorption properties of silica and zeolite particles. As a postdoctoral researcher in the Haynes lab, he will be synthesizing novel multifunctional core-shell mesoporous nanomaterials for biomedical and sensing applications.

Postdoctoral Researcher: Dr. Zhe Gao

Zhe earned her PhD in Chemistry with Dr. Ilya Zharov at the University of Utah, where she worked on synthesis and characterization of novel boron and silica nanoparticles. While in the Haynes group, she will be working on SERS analysis of protein analytes in blood.

Zhe's curriculum vitae is available.

Undergraduate Student: Dan Bakke

Dan is a junior Chemistry and Materials Science & Engineering double major at the University of Minnesota who started working in the Haynes lab in December 2012. While in the Haynes lab, he is working with Katie Hurley to develop separation techniques for iron oxide nanoparticles to be incorporated into mesoporous silica shells.

Undergraduate Researcher: Kadir Hussein

Kadir is a senior Chemistry major at the University of Minnesota who joined the Haynes lab in April 2013. While in the Haynes lab, he will work with mentors Ian Gunsolus and Ben Meyer to monitor bacteria respiration during nanoparticle exposure. Kadir's work is supported in part by the McNair Scholars Program.

Undergraduate Researcher: Matt Styles

Matt is a junior Chemistry major at the University of Minnesota who joined the Haynes lab in May 2013. While in the Haynes lab, he will work with mentor Antonio Campos to fabricate substrates for surface-enhance Raman scattering and use them for protein sensing applications.

Undergraduate Researcher: Nathan Klein

Nathan is a sophomore Chemistry major at the University of Minnesota who joined the Haynes lab in May 2013. While in the Haynes lab, he will work with mentor Ashish Datt to fabricate mesoporous silica-based sensors.

Summer 2013 LEF Researcher: Jolene Johnson Armstrong

Jolene is an assistant professor at St. Catherine University who joined the Haynes lab in June 2013 with two of her undergraduate researchers, Sara and Rachel. Jolene got her doctorate in the Mueller lab in the Physics department at the University of Minnesota before taking a position at St. Kate's in Fall 2012. Sara is a senior and Rachel a junior at St. Kate's, both are Chemistry majors. They will be working with mentor Solaire Finkenstaedt-Quinn to perform TIRF imaging on platelets in a microfluidic device.

Summer 2013 NNIN REU Researcher: Ashlyn Young

Ashlyn is an undergraduate student at UNC, Chapel Hill who joins the Haynes lab for summer 2013. While in the Haynes lab, Ashlyn will work with mentor Xiaojie Wu to study neutrophil chemotaxis using microfluidic platforms.

Archive of Group Photos

Haynes Group in February 2012

Haynes Group in June 2011

Haynes Group in June 2010

Haynes Group in July 2009

Haynes Group in October 2008

October 2007

April 2007

August 2006

Group Alumni

Graduate Student: Dr. Bryce Marquis, Joined in Fall '05

Bryce successfully defended his Ph.D thesis on August 6, 2010. Bryce was the first student to work on the Haynes group's nanotoxicity project. In addition, he mentored many undergraduate and junior graduate student researchers and performed significant department and community service. Bryce is currently a postdoc at NIST working on in vivo nanotoxicity studies with Bryant Nelson. Bryce will start a tenure track faculty position at the University of Central Arkansas in Fall 2012.

Email Bryce

Dr. Marquis' curriculum vitae is available.

Graduate Student: Dr. Shencheng Ge, Joined in Fall '05

Shencheng successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis on April 26, 2011. Shencheng was the first student to exploit electrochemical techniques to study chemical messenger storage in and secretion from individual blood platelets. Shencheng was a recipient of the University of Minnesota's Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship and is currently performing postdoctoral research with Rustem Ismagilov at CalTech.

Email Shencheng

Graduate Student: Dr. Kyle Bantz, Joined in Fall '06

Kyle successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis on November 4, 2011. While in the Haynes lab, she used surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) to characterize complex mixtures of pollutant and lipid systems. Kyle is curring performing postdoctoral research with Milan Mrksich at Northwestern University.

Email Kyle

Kyle Bantz's curriculum vitae is available.

Graduate Student: Dr. Sara Love, Joined in Fall '06

Sara successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis on November 1, 2011. While in the Haynes lab, she explored bioanaytical aspects of nanoparticle cytotoxicity in chromaffin cells and blood.

Email Sara

Graduate Student: Dr. Yu-Shen Lin, Joined in Fall '07

Yu-Shen successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis on April 12, 2012. While in the Haynes lab, he was a recipient of the Taiwan Merit Scholarship and a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. His research focused on synthesizing novel chemotherapeutic nanoparticles and assessing their cytotoxicity. Yu-Shen is currently doing postdoctoral research with Prof. Jeffrey Brinker at the University of New Mexico.

Email Yu-Shen

Graduate Student: Dr. Melissa Maurer-Jones, Joined in Fall '07

Melissa successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis on November 27, 2012. While in the Haynes lab, she was a recipient of the NSF Graduate Fellowship, an ACS DAC Fellowship, and a Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. Her research focused on the correlation between reactive oxygen species and chemical messenger secretion after cell exposure to nanoscale materials. Melissa also initiated the Haynes group's work considering bacterial nanoparticle toxicity. Melissa is currently doing postdoctoral research with Prof. Kris McNeill at the ETH in Zurich.

Email Melissa

Melissa Maurer-Jones' curriculum vitae is available.

Graduate Student: Dr. Secil Koseoglu, Joined in Summer '09

Secil successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis on December 14, 2012. While in the Haynes lab, co-advised by Phil Buhlmann, Secil's work focused on characterizing the fundamental behavior of individual human platelets, with specific interest on membrane phenomena. Secil is currently doing postdoctoral research with Dr. Robert Flaumenhaft at Harvard Medical School.

Email Secil

Postdoc: Dr. Adam D. McFarland

Adam is now a research scientist at Eli Lilly. He joined the Haynes research group as an expert in Raman spectroscopy ready to explore the synthesis and transport of neurotransmitters inside cultured neuronal cells.

Adam earned his B.S. at the University of Dayton (1999) and his Ph.D. in the Van Duyne group at Northwestern University (2004). He performed one year of postdoctoral research in the Hersam group at Northwestern University (2005) before joining the Haynes lab.

Dr. McFarland's curriculum vitae is available.

Postdoc: Dr. Nathan Wittenberg

Nate joined the Haynes Lab after a postdoctoral stint at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Nate did his undergraduate work at the University of Minnesota and completed his Ph.D. at Penn State University (2006) under the guidance of Prof. Andrew Ewing, where he used giant liposomes to mimic cellular processes.

While in the Haynes lab, Nate worked to perform spectroscopic and electrochemical identification of neurotransmitters in invertebrae and single blood platelets. Nate is currently performing postdoctoral work with Prof. Sang-Hyun Oh at the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Wittenberg's curriculum vitae is available.

Research Fellow: Ozlem Ersin

Ozlem worked in the Haynes lab to add her expertise in immunology. She collaborated with Shencheng, Audrey, Donghyuk, and Ben to advance our immune system-on-a-chip work. Ozlem is currently an Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Manchester College.

Summer 2012 RET Researcher: Sharon Haldeman

Sharon is a high school teacher at Southwest High School, teaching Chemistry, Biology, and Physical Science. She worked, during summer 2012, on outreach activities (with mentors Melissa Maurer-Jones and Audrey Meyer) as a participant of the NNIN RET program.

Undergraduate Student: Yiwen Wang

Yiwen was an undergraduate chemistry major at the University of Minnesota who worked in the Haynes lab from April 2012 until June 2013. While in the Haynes lab, she worked with mentors Audrey Meyer and Ben Manning to monitor cell-secreted species using HPLC with electrochemical detection.

Undergraduate Student: Heidi Nelson

Heidi was an undergraduate Chemistry major at the University of Minnesota who worked in the Haynes lab from January 2011 until August 2012. While in the Haynes lab, she worked with mentors Kyle Bantz and Secil Koseoglu to exploit plasmonics for various sensing applications. Heidi's work was supported in part by a competitive Heisig-Gleysteen Award and UROP funding. Her research was included in her undergraduate honors thesis, a key component to her summa cum laude Latin honors.

Undergraduate Student: Alec Nicol

Alec is an undergraduate chemistry/biochemistry double major at the University of Minnesota. who worked in the Haynes lab from September 2011 until October 2012. While in the Haynes lab, he worked with mentor Katie Hurley to synthesize multifunctional mesoporous nanoparticles. Alec's work was supported in part by a competitive UROP award that he earned for 2011-2012. Alec spent summer 2012 in Japan as a researcher in the NanoJapan: IREU program.

Undergraduate Student: Cole Christenson

Cole is a chemistry major at Gustavus Adolphus who spent summer 2011 and 2012 working in the Haynes lab. While in the Haynes lab, he is worked with mentor Melissa Maurer-Jones to perform nanotoxicity experiments in bacteria.

Undergraduate Student: John Thompson

John was an undergraduate Chemistry/Physics/Philosophy triple major at the University of Minnesota who worked in the Haynes lab from September 2009 - May 2012. While in the Haynes lab, he worked with mentors Sara Love and Audrey Guerard to examine blood-nanoparticle interactions and the mast cell secretome. John's work was supported in part by a competitive UROP award that he earned for 2009-2010. John is currently enrolled in the UCLA MD/PhD program.

Undergraduate Student: Zhen (Nancy) Liu

Nancy is a senior undergraduate Chemistry/Chemical Engineering double major at the University of Minnesota who worked in the Haynes lab from June 2009 - May 2011. While in the Haynes lab, she worked with mentors Sara Love and Bryce Marquis to investigate nanoparticle shape effects on cellular toxicity. Nancy's work was supported in part by a competitive UROP award that she earned for 2009-2010.

Undergraduate Student: Gregory Gibson

Gregory is a junior Chemical Engineering major at the University of Minnesota. While in the Haynes lab, he worked with mentor Melissa Maurer-Jones to develop a model for nanoecotox studies of metal oxide nanoparticles.

Undergraduate Student: Emily Woo

Emily graduated with her Chemistry major from the University of Minnesota in May 2011. She began working in the Haynes lab in Summer 2008, and while in the Haynes lab, she worked with mentor Shencheng Ge to investigate the secretion of chemical messengers from individual blood platelets. Emily wrote and defended an honor's thesis based on her research. She is currently attending the University of Minnesota Medical School.

Undergraduate Student: Nardine Abadeer

Nardine graduated with her chemistry major from the University of Minnesota in May 2011. She began working in the Haynes lab in January 2010, and while in the Haynes lab, she worked with mentor Yu-Shen Lin to fabricate mesoporous nanoparticles and assess their toxicity and drug loading capacity. Nardine is now attending chemistry graduate school at the University of Illinois and working with Professor Cathy Murphy as a NSF Graduate Research Fellow.

Undergraduate Student: Gyung Ah (Tiya) Kim

Tiya graduated with her biochemistry major from the University of Minnesota in May 2011. While in the Haynes lab, she worked with mentor Ben Manning to perform HPLC analysis of mast cell-secreted species. Tiya wrote and defended an honor's thesis based on her research. She is currently attending medical school at Ewha Womans University in Korea.

Undergraduate Student: Benjamin Carlson

Ben was a chemistry/biochemistry double major at the University of Minnesota. While in the Haynes lab, he worked with mentor Secil Koseoglu to perform carbon-fiber microelectrode modification to minimize fouling.

Undergraduate Student: Marsha Sintara

Marsha graduated with her chemistry major from the University of Minnesota in May 2011. While in the Haynes lab, she worked with mentor Audrey Meyer to perform biomolecule extraction and purification from mast cell releasate. Marsha is attending chemistry graduate school at the University of Rhode Island.

Undergraduate Student: Joe Zibley

Joe is a chemistry major at the University of Minnesota. He worked in the Haynes lab during spring semester 2011, working with mentor Donghyuk Kim to build microfluidic devices for single cell manipulations.

Undergraduate Summer Researchers 2011: Cole Christenson, Sarah Gruba and Leah Laux

Cole is a junior chemistry major at the University of Minnesota who spent summer 2011 working in the Haynes lab. While in the Haynes lab, he worked with mentor Melissa Maurer-Jones to perform nanotoxicity experiments in bacteria.

Sarah is a recent graduate of Creighton University who spent summer 2011 working in the Haynes lab as a Lando researcher. While in the Haynes lab, she worked with mentor Ben Manning to use HPLC to characterize mast cell secretion.

Leah is a junior biomedical engineering major at Washington University who spent summer 2011 working in the Haynes lab as a NNIN researcher. While in the Haynes lab, she worked with mentor Donghyuk Kim to use microfluidic platforms to analyze neutrophil chemotaxis.

Undergraduate Summer Researchers 2010: Ozge Kurtulus and Yingxia Wang

Ozge was a chemistry major at Middle East Technical University who spent summer 2010 working in the Haynes lab as a Lando researcher. While in the Haynes lab, she worked with mentor Kyle Bantz to perform SERS on lipid species. Ozge is currently in the Chemical Engineering graduate program at UC Davis.

Yingxia was a chemical engineering major at MIT who spent summer 2010 working in the Haynes lab as a NNIN researcher. While in the Haynes lab, she worked with mentor Donghyuk Kim to create microfluidic devices for detection of cell secretion.

Undergraduate Student: Katherine L. Braun

Kathy graduated as a biomedical engineering major from the University of Minnesota in May 2010. While in the Haynes lab as a UROP researcher, she worked with mentor Bryce Marquis to prepare nanoparticle-exposed cell samples for TEM and performed microscopy analysis. She is a co-author on 3 publications in the Haynes lab and began graduate school in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota in Fall 2010.

Undergraduate Student: Jenna Stevens

Jenna graduated as a chemistry major from the University of Minnesota in May 2010. While in the Haynes lab, she worked with mentor Melissa Maurer-Jones to investigate the generation of reactive oxygen species in nanoparticle-exposed cells. She is making use of her keen analytical skills working in a Minnesota crime lab.

Undergraduate Student: Chelsea DeRuyter

Chelsea graduated as a Chemistry major at the University of Minnesota in December 2009. She worked in the Haynes lab throughout the 2009 calendar year. While in the Haynes lab, she worked with mentor Kyle Bantz to fabricate SERS-active polymer scaffold nanostructures. Chelsea is currently an AmeriCorps Promise Fellow at the Minnesota Alliance with Youth.

Undergraduate Summer Researchers 2009: Sarah Connolly and Ivan Lenov

Sarah was an undergraduate at the University of Florida who spent Summer 2009 in the Haynes lab as a NNIN REU researcher. While in the Haynes lab, she worked with mentor Melissa Maurer-Jones to investigate the role of reactive oxygen species in nanoparticle toxicity.

Ivan was an undergraduate Chemistry major at Truman State who who spent Summer 2009 working in the Haynes lab as a Lando researcher. While in the Haynes lab, he worked with mentors Kyle Bantz and Nate Wittenberg to investigate the effects of partition layer ordering on SERS sensor performance. Ivan is currenlty a graduate student at the University of Illinois working in Stephen G. Sligar's group.

Undergraduate Student: Courtney Jones

Courtney was an undergraduate Chemistry major at the University of Minnesota (graduated December 2008) who worked in the Haynes lab for one year. While in the Haynes lab, she worked with mentor Kyle Bantz to fabricate novel SERS substrates and characterize them using atomic force microscopy. Her research resulted in one manuscript and an honors thesis. Courtney is currently a technical services specialist at Kerry Ingredients in Dayton, OH

Undergraduate Student: Kyle Kulseth

Kyle was an undergraduate Chemistry major at the University of Minnesota who worked in the Haynes lab during the 2008 calendar year. While in the Haynes lab, Kyle worked with mentor Shencheng Ge to explore immune cell communication using microelectrochemistry techniques. Kyle is currently working at 3M in Maplewood in the Industrial Adhesives and Tapes Division in Product Engineering.

Undergraduate Student: Michelle Malaska

Michelle graduated from the University of Minnesota undergraduate program in Spring 2008. While in the Haynes lab, she worked with mentor Sara Love to investigate the effects of nanoparticles on cellular behavior.

Undergraduate Summer Researcher 2008: Richard Kurker

Rick was an undergraduate at Providence College who spent Summer 2008 in the Haynes lab as a Lando NSF REU student. Rick worked with Nate Wittenberg to monitor real-time calcium concentration in leech neurons and won the Lando poster session at the end of the summer.

Undergraduate Student: Lindsay Werkmeister

Lindsay was an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota who graduated in December 2007. While in the Haynes lab for two years, she focused on nanoparticle synthesis and TEM characterization.

Undergraduate Student: Han Na Park

Han Na was a senior undergraduate Chemistry major at the University of Minnesota. While in the Haynes lab, she developed retinal tissue protocols and performed electrochemical measurements in that tissue with Shencheng.

Undergraduate Summer Researchers 2006 : Virginia Senkomago and Eva Cornell

Virginia graduated from Berea College and spent Summer 2006 in the Haynes lab as a Lando NSF REU student. Virginia worked with Shencheng to culture retinal neurons.

Eva graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College and spent Summer 2006 in the Haynes lab as an NNIN REU student. Eva worked with Bryce to prepare TEM samples for cytotoxicity studies.

High School Researcher: Brian Petkov

Brian worked in the Haynes lab when he was a senior at St. Paul Central High School and taking chemistry courses at the University of Minnesota. While in the Haynes lab, he worked with mentor Ben Manning on murine mast cell extraction and analysis.

High School Student: Anushua Bhattacharya

Anushua worked in the Haynes Lab during the summers of 2010 and 2011 while she was a high school student. She worked with mentors Sara Love and Melissa Maurer-Jones to explore metal nanoparticle cytotoxicity in both mammalian and bacterial cells.