• Contact Info
Publications in VIVO
 

Kaar, Joel L.

Professor

Positions

Research Areas research areas

Research

research overview

  • Our research, which is highly multidisciplinary, is rooted in an interest in understanding the relationship between the structure, function, and environment of proteins and enzymes. The understanding of this relationship is crucial for rationally engineering proteins and enzymes to create new therapies, methods for the detection and destruction of toxic and/or harmful agents, and routes for the synthesis of industrially important chemicals and renewable fuels. We are particularly interested in exploiting the rich and diverse range of properties of polymeric materials to tune the activity and stability of enzymes. In order to tune the properties of enzymes with polymers, it is critical to understand the impact of protein-polymer interactions at the molecular level. As such, my group has had a long standing interest in the impact of materials on protein conformation and dynamics.

keywords

  • Biocatalysis, Nonaqueous enzymology, Protein structure and function at material interfaces, Protein engineering, Biofuels, Tissue engineering, Bioremediation

Publications

selected publications

Teaching

courses taught

  • CHEN 3010 - Applied Data Analysis
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2019 / Fall 2022
    Teaches students to analyze and interpret data. Topics include engineering measurements, graphical presentation and numerical treatment of data, statistical inference, and regression analysis.
  • CHEN 4330 - Chemical Engineering Reaction Kinetics
    Secondary Instructor - Spring 2022
    Introduces chemical kinetics and chemical reactor design. Involves mass and energy balances for steady-state and transient reactor systems. Also covers residence time distribution, mass transfer,catalytic reactions, and multiple steady states in reactors.
  • CHEN 4830 - Chemical Engineering Biokinetics
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2018 / Spring 2022
    Introduces chemical kinetics, chemical reactor design, and biological kinetics. Involves mass and energy balances for steady-state and transient reactor systems. Also covers residence time distribution, mass transfer, catalytic reactions, multiple steady states in reactors, enzyme kinetics, metabolic networks, and cell growth kinetics.
  • CHEN 4838 - Special Topics in Chemical Engineering
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2018 / Fall 2020
    May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours.
  • CHEN 5838 - Special Topics in Chemical Engineering
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2018 / Fall 2020 / Spring 2021 / Spring 2022
    Graduate-selected topics courses offered upon demand. May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours.
  • CHEN 5919 - Special Topics in CHBE
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2018 / Spring 2023 / Spring 2024
    May be repeated up to 5 total credit hours.

Background

International Activities

Other Profiles