Malay Mondal
Ph.D. Candidate, Chemistry & Biochemistry | Biomolecular Condensates | Protein & IDR Biophysics
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About
Experimental protein biophysicist investigating how sequence-level features encode phase behavior and emergent material properties in biomolecular condensates. Expertise spans designer peptide condensates, intrinsically disordered/amyloidogenic protein systems, quantitative LLPS characterization, protein biochemistry, fluorescence microscopy, and mass spectrometry. Current work uses a systematically designed peptide library to define how spacer length and cysteine number regulate saturation concentration, molecular mobility, fusion/shape relaxation, aging, stability, and redox responsiveness in synthetic biomolecular condensates; manuscript in preparation.
First-author publications in JACS (2024) and PNAS (2025), with a recent collaborative bioRxiv preprint (2026) on supramolecular-polymer-mediated targeted degradation of alpha-synuclein.
Experience
Graduate Research Assistant - University of Southern Mississippi, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
(2022-01)
Advisor: Prof. Vijay Rangachari
- Designed and characterized a systematic peptide library varying spacer length and cysteine number to determine how molecular grammar regulates the phase behavior and material properties of synthetic biomolecular condensates, manuscript in preparation.
- Developed a reversible disulfide-cross-linked peptide condensate platform demonstrating that covalent crosslinks act as tunable levers of phase separation, dissolution, and viscoelasticity (JACS, 2024).
- Engineered redox-sensitive condensates for efficient cytosolic delivery of proteins, plasmid DNA, and mRNA, connecting fundamental condensate biophysics with functional biomaterial design (PNAS, 2025).
- Investigate heterotypic and amyloid-associated phase behavior involving TDP-43 prion-like domain, alpha-synuclein, and RNA, including condensate-interface effects on amyloid formation (Communications Biology, 2023).
- Peptide/protein characterization and collaborate across biophysics, structural biology, polymer science, and cell biology projects.
Education
Ph.D. - Chemistry & Biochemistry - University of Southern Mississippi (2027-04)
M.S. - Chemistry (Non-Thesis) - University of Southern Mississippi (2023-01)
M.Sc. - Biotechnology - South Asian University (SAARC) (2019-01)
B.Sc. - Biochemistry and Molecular Biology - University of Chittagong (2017-01)
