The Carroll SynBio Lab investigates the programmable assembly of genetically engineered and artificial soft materials for synthetic biology control mechanisms with utility in synthetic cell, tissue engineering, bio sensing, and medical imaging systems. Our interests extend from fundamental polymer physics to synthetic cell organelles, from all-aqueous emulsion drops to cancer tumor spheroids. The techniques we use include droplet-based and acoustic microfluidics, protein engineering, light scattering, silica sol gel chemistries, and electron microscopy.

lab news

August 2025 Adam’s manuscript published in ACS Biomacromolecules. “Rational design of Thermo-responsive Elastin Like Protein Monolayers for Non-enzymatic Cell Harvesting.” Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.biomac.5c00861

January 2023 Ian’s manuscript published in ACS Applied Bio Materials! “Microfluidic Fabrication of Silica Microspheres Infused with Positron Emission Tomography Imaging Agents” Congratulations, Ian!

Link to Article: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsabm.2c00940

June 2022 Telmo Diez Perez awarded PhD with distinction! Telmo defends his Phd dissertation, “ENGINEERED NUCLEIC-ACID BINDING INTRINSICALLY DISORDERED PROTEINS FOR BIOMEDICAL
APPLICATIONS” and earns the honors of graduating with distinction. Congratulations, DR. DIEZ PEREZ!

May 2022 Telmo Diez Perez receives outstanding CBE student award! Telmo is awarded outstanding CBE graduate student! Click here for CBE press release.

January 2022 Professor Carroll awarded the UNM School of Engineering Dean’s Excellence Lectureship Award!

January 2022 Welcome, Angelea to the Carroll Lab! Angelea Maestas-Olguin joins the Carroll Lab to develop electronic integrated microfluidic chips to create and investigate surrogate blood barrier environments using biological cell scaffolds in controlled microenvironments. Angelea is an NSF Graduate Research Fellowships Program awardee, as is current PhD student Adam Quintana, meaning our Lab now comprises two talented NSF GRFP awardees in the group. Noice.

December 2021 Qing Sun Graduates with a master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering!

December 2021 UNM SOE link to story by Kim Delker on Professor Carroll’s induction into the 2021 class of influential researchers. If you’re lucky enough for Kim to do a write up, it means you did something big: https://engineering.unm.edu/news/2021/12/engineering-professor-carroll-selected-for-acs-2021-class-of-influential-researchers-award.html

December 2021 Professor Carroll voted into the 2021 Class of Influential Researchers
Even more great news to follow!

November 2021 Proofs are in! Carroll Lab Invited Paper ACS I&EC Award Issue.
Dr. Carroll will be inducted into the 2021 Class of Influential Researchers Dec 8.
Our manuscript, DNA Binding by an Intrinsically Disordered Elastin-like Polypeptide for Assembly of Phase Separated Nucleoprotein Coacervates has been accepted for publication in the I&EC award issue. About the Class of Influential Researchers award:
The global team of editors and editorial advisory board members identified this class of influential, early career researchers (those with 10 or so years in their independent research career) on the basis of the quality and impact of their research.
Industrial & Engineering Chemistry has been at the forefront of chemical engineering research since 1909. It is the largest, oldest, most cited, and most selective general interest chemical engineering journal with global visibility across all facets of the chemistry profession.
Even more great news to follow!

November 2021 Dr Carroll’s NSF CAREER Award Writeup UNM School of Engineering Magazine: Link UNM SOE Magazine
Photo of Qing Sun working hard in the lab, going Bossanova on her thesis experiments. Qing will be defending next month. Thesis Title: “Characterization of phase behavior of intrinsically disordered protein solutions by UV-vis spectrophotometry and phase volume fraction measurements in capillaries.”

October 2021 UNM $2 Million DOE Award Press Release: https://news.unm.edu/news/department-of-energy-funds-unm-research-on-enhanced-geothermal-energy
Even more great news to follow!

October 2021 Dr Carroll is Co-Primary Investigator for a US Department of Energy (DOE) award totaling $2 million to create smart microcapsules with a clocking release mechanism to deliver pore-forming polymers to modify fracture permeability in geothermal wells. The goal is to develop geothermal-specific porous polymers that can survive placement in the geothermal environment to reduce permeability indefinitely by at least a factor of 10 for formation temperatures of 175 to 275 °C, at distances up to 100 m away from well bore. Press release on this DOE award and other big announcements for our lab soon to follow!

May 2021 Telmo’s poster on synthetic cell organelles selected as a winner at the 2021 SynCell International Conference! There were dozens of poster entries from around the world, great job Telmo! Click here to see a video on the poster.

April 2021 Dr. Carroll’s NSF award is featured in the UNM Chemical and Biological Engineering Department Spring 2021 News update!

April 2021 Dr. Carroll and Telmo featured in the UNM Foundation newsletter highlighting R1 research at UNM! Click Here For Newsletter

April 2021 Adam created a 3D stereogram of an emulsion using a z-stack on our Olympus microscope! My strategy: cross eyes until 3 images appear, the center image will be the one that looks 3D. Can’t see it? How to link: https://www.wikihow.com/View-Stereograms

Feb 2021 Dr. Carroll receives the NSF CAREER Award!  NSF grant number 2048051 CAREER: Aqueous Multiphase Assembly of Membraneless Synthetic Cell Structures: Research, Education and Outreach. UNM Press Release

Feb 2021 Ian passes the PhD comprehensive exam! Title: Microfluidic polymeric microspheres for advancing biomedical applications. Congrats PhD candidate Larsen!

Dec 2020 Telmo passes the PhD comprehensive exam! Title: Use of synthetic intrinsically disordered proteins in nucleic acid detection techniques. Congrats PhD candidate Diez Perez!