markita landry in the lab

Research Bio

Markita del Carpio Landry is a physicist, neuroscientist, and plant biotechnologist whose research combines nanotechnology, imaging, and neurobiology. She is best known for developing nanosensors that monitor neurotransmitter dynamics in the brain, providing new tools to study dopamine and serotonin in real time. Her interdisciplinary work spans physics, chemistry, and biology to create technologies for probing and manipulating neural circuits, and for genetic engineering of agricultural crops.

Landry is Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, of Neuroscience, and of Molecular and Cellular Biology at UC Berkeley and a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator. She has received over 40 career awards and serves on the scientific advisory board of numerous biotechnology companies. 

Select Awards

  • 2025 Guggenheim Fellow
  • 2025 MIT Charles L. Cooney Endowed Lecture
  • 2025 Caltech Robert W. Vaughan Endowed Lecture
  • 2025 Member, National Academies of Science of Bolivia
  • 2024 Blavatnik National Laureate in Chemistry
  • 2024 Member, New York Academy of Sciences
  • 2024 Notre Dame 2024 Thiele Award lecture
  • 2024 Heising-Simons Faculty Awar
  • 2024 Society for Neuroscience (SfN) Presidential Lecture
  • 2023 Schmidt Polymaths Award
  • 2023 Keck Foundation Award
  • 2023 The Purdue Duncan and Suzanne Mellichamp Award Lectureship
  • 2023 Bakar Prize
  • 2022 UNC Chapel Hill Distinguished Young Alumni Award
  • 2022 McKnight Scholar Award
  • 2022 Philomathia Prize
  • 2022 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science
  • 2021 Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator
  • 2021 Dreyfus Foundation Teacher-Scholar Award
  • 2021 NSF CAREER Award
  • 2021 Nature Research Awards for Inspiring Women in Science
  • 2021 NAS Standing Committee on Biotechnology Capabilities and National Security Needs
  • 2021 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Commencement Speaker
  • 2020 Cell Press 100 Most Inspiring Hispanic/Latinx Scientists in America
  • 2020 SfN Janett Rosenberg Trubatch Career Development Award
  • 2020 University of Illinois Alumni Association Young Alumni Award
  • 2020 Frontiers of Imaging: CZI Deep Tissue Imaging Award
  • 2020 Emerging Leader in Molecular Spectroscopy Award
  • 2020 ECS Nanocarbons Division Young Investigator Award
  • 2019 C&EN Talented 12
  • 2019 Kavli Fellow, National Academies of Science
  • 2019 Bakar Fellow
  • 2019 Prytanean Faculty Award
  • 2018 Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers Young Investigator Award
  • 2018 HHMI Gilliam Fellow
  • 2018 DARPA Young Faculty Award
  • 2018  Sloan Foundation Fellow
  • 2017  Kavli Fellow, National Academies of Engineering
  • 2017  Innovative Genomics Institute Fellow
  • 2017  Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research New Innovator Award
  • 2017  Hellen Wills Neuroscience Institute – Radical Ideas Awardee
  • 2017  Stanley Fahn Junior Faculty Award
  • 2017  Beckman Foundation Young Investigator
  • 2017  Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator
  • 2016  Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface
  • 2015  Brain and Behavior Foundation (NARSAD) Young Investigator Award

Select publications

  1. Voke, E., Arral, M., Squire, H.J., Lin, T., Coreas, R., Lui, A., Lavarone, A.T., Pinals, R.L.‡, Whitehead, K.A.‡, Landry, M.P.‡ Protein corona formed on lipid nanoparticles compromises delivery efficiency of mRNA cargo. Nature Communications (2025)
  2. Black, A.B., Komatsu, N., Zhao, J., Raskey, S.R., Serrano, N.S., Sharma, S.R., Manoli, D.S., Landry, M.P.‡, Beery, A.K.‡ Oxytocin receptor absence reduces selectivity in peer relationships and alters neurochemical release in prairie voles. Current Biology(2025)
    1. Highlighted in Popular Science
    2. Highlighted in UC Berkeley News
  3. Mun, J., Navarro, N., Jeong, S., Ouassil, N., Leem, E., Beyene, A.G., Landry, M.P.‡ Near Infrared Nanosensors Enable Optical Imaging of Oxytocin with Selectivity over Vasopressin in Acute Mouse Brain Slices. PNAS (2024)
  4. Wang, J.W., Goh, N., Lien, E., Gonzalez Grandio, E., Landry, M.P.‡ Quantification of cell penetrating peptide mediated delivery of proteins in plant leaves. Nature Communications Biology (2023)
  5. Squire, H., Tomatz, S., Voke, E., Landry, M.P.‡ The emerging role of nanotechnology in plant genetic engineering. Nature Reviews Bioengineering (2023)
  6. Ashkarran, A.A., Gharibi, H., Voke, E., Landry, M.P., Saei, A.A.‡, Mahmoudi, M.‡ Measurements of heterogeneity in proteomics analysis of nanoparticle protein corona across core facilities. Nature Communications (2022)
  7. Zhang, H.*, Goh, N.S.*, Wang, J., Demirer, G.S., Butrus, S., Park, S-J, Landry, M.P.‡ Nanoparticle Cellular Internalization is Not Required for RNA Delivery to Mature Plant Leaves. Nature Nanotechnology (2022)
    1. Highlighted in Nature Materials (2021), C. Horejs
  8. Ouassil, N.*, Pinals, R.L.*, O’Donnell, J.T.D., Wang, J., Landry, M.P.‡ Supervised Learning Model to Predict Protein Adsorption to Nanoparticles. Science Advances (2022)
  9. Demirer, G.S.‡, Silva, T.N., Jackson, C.T., Thomas, J.B., Ehrhardt, D., Rhee, S.Y.‡, Mortimer, J.C.‡, Landry, M.P.‡ Nanotechnology to advance CRISPR/Cas genetic engineering of plants. Nature Nanotechnology (2021). 16, 243–250
  10. Demirer, G.S., Zhang, H., Goh, N.S., Chang, R., Landry, M.P.‡ Carbon nanocarriers deliver siRNA to intact plant cells for efficient gene knockdown. Science Advances (2020). 6 (26).
  11. Jeong, S., Yang, D., Beyene, A.G., O’Donnell, J.T.D., Gest, A. M., Navarro, N., Sun, X., Landry, M.P.‡ High Throughput Evolution of Near Infrared Serotonin Nanosensors. Science Advances (2019). 5 (12), 1-12
  12. Beyene, A. G., Delevich, K., O’Donnell, J.T.D., Piekarski, D.J., Lin, W.C., Thomas, A.W., Yang, S.J., Kosillo, P., Yang, D., Wilbrecht, L., Landry, M.P.‡ Imaging Striatal Dopamine Release Using a Non-Genetically Encoded Near-Infrared Fluorescent Catecholamine Nanosensor. Science Advances (2019). 5 (7), 1-11
    1. Highlighted in Nature (2019), J. Lambert
    2. Highlighted in C&E News
    3. Highlighted in the San Francisco Chronicle
  13. Demirer, G.S., Zhang, H., Matos, J., Goh, N., Cunningham, F.J., Sung, Y., Chang, R., Aditham, A.J., , Chio, L., Cho, M.J., Staskawicz, B., Landry, M.P.‡ High Aspect Ratio Nanomaterials Enable Delivery of Functional Genetic Material Without DNA Integration in Mature Plants. Nature Nanotechnology (2019). 14, 456-464
  14. Zhang, H.*, Demirer, G.S.*, Zhang, H., Ye, T., Goh, N.S., Aditham, A.J., Cunningham, F.J., Fan, C., Landry, M.P.‡ Low-dimensional DNA Nanostructures Coordinate Gene Silencing in Mature Plants. PNAS  (2019). 116 (15), 7543-7548

Research Expertise and Interest

nanomaterials, fluorescence microscopy, sensors, imaging, neuroscience, plant engineering

In the News

Markita Landry receives Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholars award

Markita Landry, Asst. Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, has been named a 2021 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. This award recognizes faculty within the first five years of their academic careers, who have created an outstanding independent body of scholarship, and are deeply committed to education.

Nano-sized sensors learn new biological tricks

Christopher Jackson, a graduate student in the Landry Lab at QB3-Berkeley, explores how a better understanding of nanotechnology interactions with biological systems can improve neuroimaging and COVID-19 testing.

A Nano Strategy Overcomes Barriers to Plant Genetic Engineering

It’s like a Trojan horse on an incredibly small scale, a vehicle designed to slip through the tough defensive wall of plant cells and deliver the potent gene editing system, CRISPR-Cas9. Once inside, CRISPR- Cas9 can snip out a targeted gene to boost crop yields. The delivery vehicles are nanotubes, developed by Markita Landry. With support as a Bakar Fellow, Landry is now refining the technique and working with experts in agricultural science, business and other fields needed to reach the marketplace.

Seven new Bakar Fellows already are making an impact

Seven University of California, Berkeley, faculty scientists with novel ideas and an entrepreneurial spirit have been named to the 2019-20 cohort of Bakar Fellows, an honor that gives the fellows the money and time to translate their laboratory breakthroughs into technologies ready for the marketplace.

With nanotubes, genetic engineering in plants is easy-peasy

Inserting or tweaking genes in plants is more art than science, but with a new technique developed by University of California, Berkeley, scientists could make genetically engineering any type of plant—in particular, gene editing with CRISPR-Cas9—simple and quick.

Featured in the Media

Please note: The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or positions of UC Berkeley.
March 13, 2019

An Advance in Bioengineering Could Pave the Way for Tomorrow's Superplants

Popular Mechanics
Jill Kiedaisch
A new way of genetically engineering plants using nanotubes and CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology promises to make the modification of plants far easier and quicker than any strategy to date. The technique works consistently -- unlike prior strategies -- and it is accomplished by grafting a gene onto a carbon nanotube that can easily slip through the plant's cell wall, delivering the desired gene into the nucleus as well as the chloroplast. In addition to protecting the DNA from being degraded, the nanotube prevents insertion into the plant's genome, and that means the process is not considered a genetic modification, or GMO. "In agriculture, genetic enhancement of plants can be employed to create crops that are resistant to herbicides, insects, diseases, and drought," the team, led by assistant chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Markita Landry, wrote in their report. For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News. Other stories on this topic have appeared in dozens of sources, including Science and Technology Research News, Extreme Tech, Floral Daily, and Tech Times.
FullStory

March 11, 2019

All Things Considered: Scientists Thread A Nano-Needle To Modify The Genes Of Plants

NPR
Joe Palca
Berkeley scientists have developed a new way of genetically engineering plants using nanotubes and CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology, and the method promises to make the modification of plants significantly easier and quicker than any strategy to date. The technique works consistently -- unlike prior strategies -- and it is accomplished by grafting a gene onto a carbon nanotube that can easily slip through the plant's cell wall, delivering the desired gene into the nucleus as well as the chloroplast. Assistant chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Markita Landry, the study's lead author, came up with the idea. Explaining the nanotubes' purpose, she says a strand of DNA is small enough to get through a plant cell wall, but it's not stiff enough. "You can kind of think of it like a floppy string," she says. "If you try to push a floppy string through a sponge, it's not really going to work, but if you take a solid needle and try to push it through a sponge, that will work much better." Link to audio. For more on this, see our press release at Berkeley News.
FullStory


Loading Class list ...