Principal Investigator
Prakash Shrestha, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
I was born in Arghakhanchi, Nepal, and earned my M.Sc. in Physical Chemistry from Tribhuvan University. During my Ph.D. at Kent State University under the guidance of Dr. Hanbin Mao, I developed several single-molecule methods for biosensing applications and investigated the mechanical properties of nucleic acid structures and DNA nanostructures under various conditions. I then joined Dr. Wesley Wong's lab in Harvard Medical School, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Wyss Institute as a postdoc. There, I developed a high-throughput, single-molecule mechanical approach for proteomics analysis in collaboration with Dr. William Shih. My work led to the development of a mechanically reconfigurable DNA device called DNA nanoswitch caliper to measure multiple distances in a target biomolecule with angstrom-level precision. Since starting my lab in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky, I have been passionate about innovating and applying single-molecule techniques to unravel complex biological processes.
Graduate Students
Hasanul Kabir Rafi
M.S., Chemistry, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Bangladesh
Sumaia Afroz
M.S., Chemistry, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Bangladesh
