Rate My Professor Juan Perilla

Juan Perilla is an associate professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Delaware, where he directs the Biophysical Chemistry Laboratory. He earned his Ph.D. in 2011 from Johns Hopkins University, with research on transition state theory applied to large conformational changes in proteins. He then completed postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Klaus Schulten at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, studying simulations of entire viruses and bacterial organelles under physiological conditions. Joining the University of Delaware faculty in 2017, Prof. Perilla develops physical and chemical methodologies ranging from quantum-mechanical calculations to mesoscale simulations. These efforts leverage petascale and exascale supercomputers to model biological processes related to life and disease. His integrative research connects biology, chemistry, and physics through single-particle cryo-electron microscopy, NMR spectroscopy, and molecular dynamics simulations for constructing high-resolution atomistic models.

Prof. Perilla's research specializes in molecular biophysics and the molecular mechanisms of HIV-1 infection, focusing on the structure, dynamics, and interactions of the HIV capsid with host factors. He has authored approximately 50 peer-reviewed articles, three book chapters, and 11 journal covers. Key publications include "Inositol phosphates are assembly co-factors for HIV-1" (Nature, 2018), "Dynamic regulation of HIV-1 capsid interaction with the restriction factor TRIM5α identified by magic-angle spinning NMR and molecular dynamics simulations" (PNAS, 2018), "Mature HIV-1 capsid structure by cryo-electron microscopy and all-atom molecular dynamics" (Nature, 2013), "Physical properties of the HIV-1 capsid from all-atom molecular dynamics simulations" (Nature Communications, 2017), and "Cyclophilin A stabilizes the HIV-1 capsid through a novel non-canonical binding site" (Nature Communications, 2016). His laboratory has performed the largest molecular dynamics simulations conducted to date and developed robust statistical analysis frameworks for massive datasets. With over 4,900 citations on Google Scholar, Prof. Perilla's work has significantly impacted computational structural biology. He was named a Mangone Young Scholar in 2023 and received the 2018 HPCwire Award for Best HPC Collaboration (Academia/Government/Industry), along with major supercomputing allocations such as 582,000 node hours on Blue Waters.