team

Marshall S. Padilla, Ph.D. is an incoming Assistant Professor in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering and a Sarafan ChEM-H Institute Scholar at Stanford University.

Marshall received his B.S. in Chemistry with a minor in Mathematics at the College of William & Mary, his Ph.D. in Chemistry (Chemical Biology) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. His prior research spans the synthesis and genetic incorporation of unnatural amino acids into proteins, the development of hydrophobic nanoemulsion excipients, and identification of the structure–activity relationships of RNA lipid nanoparticles.

Marshall’s vision for the Padilla Lab is to write the guiding principles for how to rationally design RNA nanomedicines through a multidisciplinary scientific approach. When not in lab, you can find Marshall chasing a frisbee or playing board and video games.

Simin Chun, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral researcher with a background in pharmaceutical chemistry, lipid nanoparticle development, and mRNA delivery.

Simin received her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the College of Pharmacy at Seoul National University, where she studied iron-catalyzed transfer hydrogenation of N-heterocycles. As a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Catholic University of Korea, she expanded her research into photochemistry-based ionizable lipid discovery, high-throughput LNP screening, and mRNA delivery.

Her research interests center on developing new functional materials for RNA nanomedicine through high-throughput molecular discovery, with particular interests in ionic liquids and lipid nanoparticles, as well as in understanding how molecular structure and interfacial properties influence biological transport and therapeutic performance. Outside the lab, Simin enjoys listening to music, exploring new places, and finding good coffee.