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GERARD C. L. WONG

Career Highlights

Gerard Wong received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1994. He then worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics in the Netherlands and at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2000, Professor Wong joind the University of Illinois departments of Material Science and Engineering and Physics, as Assistant Professor. He is the recipient of a Beckman Young Investigator Award (2001) and was named the Donald Burnett Teacher of the Year (2003) and Sloan Foundation Fellow (2004).

Research Areas

Wong and his colleagues are interested in the materials science and condensed matter physics of biology, with an emphasis on self-assembled biological and biomimetic systems. The group is inherently interdisciplinary; collaborators include physicists, chemists, biologists, and materials scientists. The group’s topics of current interest include self-assembled scaffolds for artificial bone; bioengineered non-viral gene and drug delivery systems; biomimetic approaches for electronic, magnetic, and photonic materials; protein chips and microfluidics for post-genomic biology; materials science of cystic fibrosis; and new organizations of soft condensed matter. In this work, a wide range of experimental techniques employed by physicists and biologists will be brought to bear, including complementary methods to access information on the structure and governing interactions at a large range of length-scales (mm to sub-nm). Quantitative, ultra-high resolution in-situ measurements will be performed using state-of-the-art techniques of synchrotron x-ray scattering at the new UIUC beamline (UNICAT) of the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Lab in Chicago, as well as at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) in California, and the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) in New York. At the UIUC MRL, Wong has recently built a new rotating-anode based Small Angle X-ray Scattering facility with focusing optics and a 2D area detector. He also does a wide range of optical microscopies, including laser-scanning confocal microscopy, fluorescence and video-enhanced optical microscopy. Professor Wong also has full access to the resources available at the Center for Microanalysis of Materials at the UIUC MRL, including Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM).

Selected Publications

• G.C.L. Wong, “The soft sector in condensed matter physics,” Science 305, 948 (2004)
• H. Liang, T. Angelini, P.V. Braun, G.C.L. Wong, “Roles of anionic and cationic template components in biomineralization of CdS nanorods in self-assembled DNA-membrane complexes,” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 126, 14157-14165 (2004)
• L. Yang, H. Liang, T. Angelini, J. Butler, R. Coridan, J.X. Tang, G.C.L. Wong, “Self-assembly of virus membrane complexes,” Nature Materials 3, 615-619 (2004)
• H. Liang, T. Angelini, J. Ho, P.V. Braun, and G.C.L. Wong, "Molecular imprinting of biomineralized CdS nanostructures: Crystallographic control using self-assembled DNA-membrane templates," J. Am. Chem. Soc. 125, 11786-11787 (2003)
• T. Angelini, H. Liang, W. Wriggers, and G.C.L. Wong, "Like-charge attraction between polyelectrolytes mediated by counterion charge density waves," Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 100, 8634-8637, (2003)
• J. Butler, T. Angelini, J.X. Tang, and G.C.L. Wong, "Ion Multivalence and Like-Charge Polyelectrolyte Attraction," Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 028301 (2003)
• G.C.L. Wong, A. Lin, J.X. Tang, Y. Li, P. Janmey, and C.R. Safinya, "Lamellar Phase of Stacked Two-Dimensional Rafts of Actin Filaments," Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 018103 (2003)
• G.C.L. Wong, J.X. Tang, A. Lin, Y. Li, P.A. Janmey, and C.R. Safinya, "Hierarchical self-assembly of F-Actin cationic lipid complexes: stacked three-layer tubule networks," Science 288, 2035 (2000)
• G.C.L.Wong, Y.Li, I.Koltover, C.R.Safinya, Z.Cai, and W.Yun, "Mesoscopic structure of DNA-membrane self-assemblies: microdiffraction and manipulation on lithographic substrates," Appl. Phys. Lett. 73, 2042 (1998)
• Y. Li, G.C.L. Wong, C.R. Safinya, E. Caine, and E. Hu, "Bragg-Fresnel optics for hard x-ray microscopy: Development of fabrication process and x-ray characterization at the Advanced Photon Source," Rev. Sci. Instrum. 69, 2844 (1998)
• E.A.L. Mol, G.C.L. Wong, J.M. Petit, F. Rieutord, and W.H. de Jeu, "Thermal fluctuations of freely suspended smectic-A films from mesoscopic to molecular length scales," Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 18 (1997)
• G.C.L. Wong, W.H. de Jeu, H. Shao, K.S. Liang, and R. Zentel, "Induced long-range order in crosslinked 'one-dimensional' stacks of fluid monolayers," Nature 389, 576 (1997)
• G.C.L. Wong, W.H. de Jeu, G. Bogels, E.P.G. van den Berg, and P. Bennema, "Critical examination of prewetting and surface melting on caprolactam," Phys. Rev. B 55, 1388 (1997)
• G.C.L. Wong, J. Commandeur, H. Fischer, and W.H. de Jeu, "Orientational wetting in hybrid liquid crystalline block copolymers," Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 5221 (1996).
• G.C.L. Wong, C.A. Lucas, D. Loretto, A.P. Payne, and P.H. Fuoss, "Parallel adatom chains on Si(111): a chemisorption-induced surface reconstruction," Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 991 (1994)

Professional Appointments

2000-Present		Assistant Professor, Materials Science and Engineering Department and Physics Department, University of Illinois at at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL
1997-2000		Postdoctoral Researcher, University of California at Santa Barbara
1994-1997		Postdoctoral Researcher, FOM Inst. For Atomic and Molecular Physics, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Professional Preparation

University of California at Berkeley		Physics		Ph.D. 1994
California Institute of Technology		Physics (with honors)		B.S. 1987