Rakesh, Leela

• N. Almeida, S. Hirschi, A. Mueller, L. Rakesh, Viscoelastic Properties of Kappa-Carrageenan in Saline Solution, J. Therm. Anal. Calorim. (2010) 102: 647–652.
• Rakesh, L, Interaction between sucrose, N-acetylcysteine and taurine in controlling insulin effects and energy shifts in body with and without the presence of diabetic drug Avandia: Molecular modeling study, J. Nanomedicine (in press), 2009.
• Rakesh, L., Ginsburg, V., Jog, P., Coarse-grained methodology, theory and simulation, (Dow Chemical), under review, 2009.
• Lalko, M., Hirschi, S., Rakesh, L. Rheology of polycarbonate reinforced with & without functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes, J. Thermal Anal. & Calorimetry, 203, 1388, 2008.
• Chai, M, Ravi, S., Rakesh, L, Investigation of Colloidal Suspension of SWCNT & Cyclodextrin using AFM & molecular dynamic simulation, American Chemical Society, Book Chapter, Chapter 28, ISBN # 978-0-8412-6969-9, 996, 2008.
  
• Kujawski, M., Howell, B., Chai, M., Mueller, A., Fan, D., Ravi, S., Slominski, C., Rakesh, L, Computer-aided Design of Nanoscale Smart Materials for Biomedical Application, J. Nanomedicine, Vol. 3, No. 5, Pages 719-739, October 2008.
  
• Howell ,B.A., Fan, D., Rakesh, L, "Nanoscale Dendrimer-Platinum Conjugates as Multivalent Antitumor Drugs" in A.S. Abd-El-Aziz, C.E. Carraher, Jr., C.U. Pittmon, Jr., and M. Zeldin, Eds., "Inorganic and Organometallic Macromolecules: Design and Applications," Springer Science, Ch. 11, pp. 269-294, 2008.
  
• Kujawski M, Rakesh L, K. Gala, A. Jensen, B. Fahlman, Z. Feng, D. Mohanty, Molecular Dynamics Simulation of PAMAM Dendrimer-Fullerene Conjugates: Generation One through Four, J Nanosci-Nanotech., 7, 4/5, 2007.
• A PAMAM (G4.5) Dendrimer Nanocarrier for Diaminocyclohexane Platinum Species, (D. Fan, B. Howell*, L. Rakesh*), Poly. Mat. Sci. Eng., 93, 946, (2006).
• Analytical Investigation of PAMAM-Platinum Dendrimer Nanocarrier, (D. Fan, B. Howell*, L. Rakesh*), Chapter accepted in Monograph, Amer. Chem. Soc., (2006).
• Thermal Decomposition of a Generation 4.5 Polyamidoamine Dendrimer Platinum Conjugate, (B. Howell*, D. Fan, and L. Rakesh), J. Thermal Anal. & Cal., 85(1), 17-20, (2006).
  
• Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Binding and Deformation of Single-Stranded DNA (ssDNA) with Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWNTs), C60, and Capped SWNTs, (L. Rakesh, C. Slomenski, and M. Chai), Proc., Nanotech & Nanomedicine, 1, 3, (2006).
• Solution Rheology of Saline and Polysaccharide Systems, (N. Almeida, S. Hirschi, A. Mueller, L. Rakesh), Proc., ASME, Chicago, (2006).

• Postdoc., Rheology of sickle cell blood flow resistance using piezoelectric transducer (NIH and Washington University, School of Medicine), St. Louis, Missouri, 1983-1984
• M.S. & Ph.D., Applied and Computational Mathematics, Theoretical and Computational Study of Biomechanical Lubrication & Rheology, ITT - Kanpur Technological Institute, India, 1983
• B.S., Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics Honors, Triv University, India, 1979

I am interested in studying rheological properties polymers and biopolymers and applying mathematical techniques, statistical mechanics and molecular modeling to study the properties of biological and synthetic macromolecules. My group consists of physicist, chemists and engineers. We study macro to micro to nanosuspension (solution and melt) rheology. I am interested in developing new techniques for characterizing the branching and entanglement patterns of network polymers, its molecular architecture and packing. This research includes applying concepts from graph theory, surface topography and knot theory to understand and characterize these networks. Pharmacophore modeling: Superpose pharmacophore elements to identify bioactive conformation. Transport properties (diffusivities, self -assembly and the intrinsic viscosities) of macromolecules using computational techniques. Computations have been performed on random coil and wormlike models of linear chain polymers, star polymers, hyperbranched polymers, dendrimers, cyclodextrins, ssDNA and proteins and their interactions with and without functionalized carbon nanotubes.