{"id":27824,"date":"2026-04-29T16:43:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T20:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/?p=27824"},"modified":"2026-04-30T12:49:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T16:49:19","slug":"congratulations-to-our-new-phd-rachel-vankeulen-miller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/congratulations-to-our-new-phd-rachel-vankeulen-miller\/","title":{"rendered":"Congratulations to our new PhD, Rachel VanKeulen-Miller!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. VanKeulen-Miller successfully defended her PhD thesis, “The Dynamic Cell as a Contextual Variable in the Mechanism and Efficacy of mRNA Lipid Nanoparticles,” under the direction of Dr. Owen Fenton!<\/p>\n

\"Rachel
Rachel VanKeulen-Miller, PhD<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Publications<\/h2>\n

Shelf-stable, Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Patches: Dip-and-Deliver Solutions for Personalized Wound Care.<\/a>\u00a0Chaudhari AP, Tabashsum Z, Khosravi P, Hensley H, Wang CJ, Moses E, Harris S, Hazelton A, Tiwade PB,\u00a0VanKeulen-Miller R<\/strong>, Fenton OS, Sheiko A, Conlon A, Nguyen J.\u00a0Bioeng. Transl. Med.\u00a0<\/em>Epub 2026 Mar 23; doi: 10.1002\/btm2.70131. <\/a><\/p>\n

<\/i>Digital Object Identifier (DOI)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

CORE: Cholesterol Altered Lipid Nanoparticles for Splenic Expression of mRNA Payloads.\u00a0<\/a>Narasipura EA, Fung V,\u00a0VanKeulen-Miller R<\/strong>, Tiwade PB, Fenton OS. Adv Healthc Mater. 2026 Mar 28:e05862. doi: 10.1002\/adhm.202505862. Online ahead of print. PMID:\u00a041902498<\/p>\n

Characterizing the Impact of the Cell Cycle on mRNA Lipid Nanoparticles.<\/a> VanKeulen-Miller R<\/strong>, Aponte A, Tiwade PB, Narasipura EA, Fung V, Andersen S, Gill NA, Emanuele M, Fenton OS. J Am Chem Soc. 2026 Jan 21;148(2):2779-2791. doi: 10.1021\/jacs.5c20083. Epub 2026 Jan 8. PMID:\u00a041502411<\/p>\n

Customizable mRNA Lipid Nanoparticles for Transfection of Primary Human T Cells.\u00a0<\/a>VanKeulen-Miller R<\/strong>, Huff J, Narasipura EA, Browne EP, Fenton OS. ACS Nano. 2025 Dec 16;19(49):41836-41849. doi: 10.1021\/acsnano.5c15903. Epub 2025 Nov 25. PMID:\u00a041289543<\/p>\n

Non-viral mRNA cystic fibrosis therapies and their ongoing clinical trials.<\/a> Gill NA, Fung V,\u00a0VanKeulen-Miller R<\/strong>, Narasipura EA, Fenton OS. Expert Opin Drug Deliv. 2026 Mar;23(3):517-535. doi: 10.1080\/17425247.2025.2586172. Epub 2025 Nov 19. PMID:\u00a041202203<\/p>\n

Using \u2018supporting molecules\u2019(SUMs) to improve mRNA LNP therapies.\u00a0<\/a>R VanKeulen-Miller,<\/strong> V Fung, OS Fenton. Nat. Rev. Bioeng.<\/em>, 2025;3(9):716-717.<\/p>\n

mRNA lipid nanoparticle formulation, characterization and evaluation.<\/a>\u00a0Ma Y,\u00a0VanKeulen-Miller R<\/strong>, Fenton OS. Nat Protoc. 2025 Sep;20(9):2618-2651. doi: 10.1038\/s41596-024-01134-4. Epub 2025 Mar 11. PMID:\u00a040069324<\/p>\n

Customizable Polymeric Nanoparticle Materials Optimized on Hypoxic Cells Facilitate mRNA Expression in the Lungs In Vivo.<\/a> Tiwade PB, Fung V, Ma Y,\u00a0VanKeulen-Miller R<\/strong>, Narasipura EA, Fenton OS. Adv Healthc Mater. 2025 Jul;14(17):e2500245. doi: 10.1002\/adhm.202500245. Epub 2025 May 27. PMID:\u00a040420637<\/p>\n

A Metabolite Co-Delivery Strategy to Improve mRNA Lipid Nanoparticle Delivery.\u00a0<\/a>Ma Y, Fung V,\u00a0VanKeulen-Miller R<\/strong>, Tiwade PB, Narasipura EA, Gill NA, Fenton OS. ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2025 May 7;17(18):26202-26215. doi: 10.1021\/acsami.4c22969. Epub 2025 Apr 24. PMID:\u00a040274610<\/p>\n

Non-Viral RNA Therapies for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer and Their Corresponding Clinical Trials.<\/a> Tiwade PB, Fung V,\u00a0VanKeulen-Miller R<\/strong>, Narasipura EA, Ma Y, Fenton OS. Mol Pharm. 2025 Apr 7;22(4):1752-1774. doi: 10.1021\/acs.molpharmaceut.4c00871. Epub 2025 Mar 25. PMID:\u00a040131145<\/p>\n

A Chemoinformatic-Guided Synthesis of a Spleen-Expressing mRNA Lipid Nanoparticle Platform.<\/a> Narasipura EA, Ma Y, Tiwade PB,\u00a0VanKeulen-Miller R, Fung V, Fenton OS. Bioconjug Chem. 2025 Jan 15;36(1):54-65. doi: 10.1021\/acs.bioconjchem.4c00419. Epub 2024 Dec 20. PMID:\u00a039704424\u00a0[*Selected for ACS Editor\u2019s Choice*]\n

A Lung-Expressing mRNA Delivery Platform with Tunable Activity in Hypoxic Environments.<\/a> Tiwade PB, Ma Y, VanKeulen-Miller R,<\/strong> Fenton OS. J Am Chem Soc. 2024 Jun 26;146(25):17365-17376. doi: 10.1021\/jacs.4c04565. Epub 2024 Jun 14. PMID: 38874565<\/p>\n

Polyphenolic Nanoparticle Platforms (PARCELs) for In Vitro and In Vivo mRNA Delivery.\u00a0<\/a>Ma Y, Tiwade PB,\u00a0VanKeulen-Miller R<\/strong>, Narasipura EA, Fenton OS. Nano Lett. 2024 May 22;24(20):6092-6101. doi: 10.1021\/acs.nanolett.4c01235. Epub 2024 May 10. PMID:\u00a038728297<\/p>\n

Messenger RNA Therapy for Female Reproductive Health.<\/a> VanKeulen-Miller R,<\/strong> Fenton OS. Mol Pharm. 2024 Feb 5;21(2):393-409. doi: 10.1021\/acs.molpharmaceut.3c00803. Epub 2024 Jan 8. PMID:\u00a038189262<\/p>\n

Ongoing Clinical Trials of Nonviral siRNA Therapeutics.<\/a> Narasipura EA,\u00a0VanKeulen-Miller R,<\/strong> Ma Y, Fenton OS. Bioconjug Chem. 2023 Jul 19;34(7):1177-1197. doi: 10.1021\/acs.bioconjchem.3c00205. Epub 2023 Jul 11. PMID: 37431859<\/p>\n

Dr. VanKeulen-Miller is also an author on 2 accepted papers.<\/i><\/p>\n

Patents<\/h2>\n

VanKeulen-Miller R<\/strong>, Narasipura EA, Huff J, Browne EP, Fenton OS, inventors; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, assignee. mRNA lipid nanoparticle formulation for targeting primary human CD4+ T cells<\/em>. U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63\/879,035. 2025.<\/p>\n

Ma Y, VanKeulen-Miller R<\/strong>, Fenton OS, inventors; University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, assignee. Approaches for optimization and discovery of nanoparticles and uses thereof<\/em>. U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63\/556,581. 2024.<\/p>\n

Honors, Awards & Highlights<\/h2>\n

Thomas Collum Butler Award from the Department of Pharmacology in 2025 for outstanding research by a pharmacology trainee.<\/p>\n

Pharmacological sciences T32 training grant in 2024 recipient.<\/p>\n

Chair of Women in Science (WinS) 2024-2025.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Rachel presents at defense<\/div><\/div>
\"Group<\/a>
Rachel with lab<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n

We wish you all the best, Rachel!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. VanKeulen-Miller successfully defended her PhD thesis, “The Dynamic Cell as a Contextual Variable in the Mechanism and Efficacy of mRNA Lipid Nanoparticles,” under the direction of Dr. Owen Fenton!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22429,"featured_media":27851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"layout":"","cellInformation":"","apiCallInformation":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[11,2,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","category-student-postdoc-news","odd"],"acf":[],"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/04\/IMG_3504-2-250.jpg","featured_image_medium":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/04\/IMG_3504-2-250.jpg","featured_image_medium_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/04\/IMG_3504-2-250.jpg","featured_image_large":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/04\/IMG_3504-2-250.jpg","featured_image_thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/930\/2026\/04\/IMG_3504-2-250-150x150.jpg","featured_image_alt":"Rachel VanKeulen-Miller, PhD","category_details":[{"name":"Featured News","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/category\/featured\/"},{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/category\/news\/"},{"name":"Student & Postdoc News","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/category\/news\/student-postdoc-news\/"}],"tag_details":[],"_links_to":[],"_links_to_target":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27824"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27864,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27824\/revisions\/27864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/pharm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}