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Pepperdine | Seaver College
Kirsten Fetah

Kirsten Fetah

Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology
Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry
and Visiting Assistant Professor of Biochemistry
Natural Science Division, Seaver College
116 RAC
310-506-6310

Biography

Kirsten Fetah earned her Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2025, where she also received her M.S. in Bioengineering. She previously earned her B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Her doctoral research centered on the design and synthesis of bioinspired polymers for applications in gene delivery. She has presented her research at the American Chemical Society Annual Meeting and is a co-author of a publication in Nature Microbiology. Her research group designs bioinspired polymers and biomaterials for therapeutic delivery, with current interests in carbohydrate-based polymers for metabolic health, stimuli-responsive polymer systems, and sustainable polymer materials for environmental remediation. Kirsten is passionate about integrating faith and science and strives to cultivate a research community that encourages curiosity, excellence, and service while supporting students in both their academic and spiritual growth.

Education

  • Ph.D., Bioengineering, UCLA
  • M.S., Bioengineering, UCLA
  • B.S., Bioengineering, UC Berkeley

 

  • William C. Schmidt, Calvin K. Lee, Xuhui Zheng, Jonathan W. Chen, Kirsten L. Fetah, James R. Popoli, Yun Su Choi, Thomas D. Young, Walter T. Liau, Paul S. Weiss, Andrea M. Kasko, George A. O’Toole, Matthew R. Parsek, Gerard C. L. Wong. “Inter-bacterial Communication through Exopolysaccharide Sensing”. Nature Microbiology. 2025.
  • Brooke A. Jackson Hoffman, Elizabeth A. Pumford, Amaka I. Enueme, Kirsten L. Fetah, Olivia M. Friedl, Andrea M. Kasko. “Engineered macromolecular Toll-like receptor agents and assemblies.” Trends in Biotechnology, 41(9), 1139-1154, 2023.
  • Samad Ahadian, Joel A. Finbloom, Mohammad Mofidfar, Sibel Emir Diltemiz, Fatemeh Nasrollahi, Elham Davoodi, Vahid Hosseini, Ioanna Mylonaki, Sivakoti Sangabathuni, Hossein Montazerian, Kirsten Fetah, Rohollah Nasiri, Mehmet Remzi Dokmeci, Molly M. Stevens, Tejal A. Desai, Ali Khademhosseini. “Micro and nanoscale technologies in oral drug delivery.” Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, 2020, Volume 157, Pages 37-62.
  • KangJu Lee, Marcus J Goudie, Peyton Tebon, Wujin Sun, Zhimin Luo, Junmin Lee, Shiming Zhang, Kirsten Fetah, Han-Jun Kim, Yumeng Xue, Mohammad Ali Darabi, Samad Ahadian, Einollah Sarikhani, WonHyoung Ryu, Zhen Gu, Paul S. Weiss, Mehmet R. Dokmeci, Nureddin Ashammakhi, Ali Khademhosseini. “Non-transdermal microneedles for advanced drug delivery.” Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, 2020, Volumes 165–166, Pages 41-59.
  • Hyojin Ko, Kasinan Suthiwanich, Héloïse Mary, Somayeh Zanganeh, Shu-Kai Hu, Samad Ahadian, Yunzhi Yang, Goro Choi, Kirsten Fetah, Yuting Niu, Jeremy J Mao, Ali Khademhosseini. “A simple layer-stacking technique to generate biomolecular and mechanical gradients in photocrosslinkable hydrogels.” Biofabrication, 2019, 11 025014.
  • Kirsten L Fetah, Benjamin J DiPardo, Eve-Mary Kongadzem, James S Tomlinson, Adam Elzagheid, Mohammed Elmusrati, Ali Khademhosseini, Nurredin Ashammakhi. “Cancer modeling-on-a-chip with future artificial intelligence integration.” Small, 2019, 15, 1901985.
  • Kirsten Fetah, Peyton Tebon, Marcus J Goudie, James Eichenbaum, Li Ren, Natan Barros, Rohollah Nasiri, Samad Ahadian, Nureddin Ashammakhi, Mehmet R Dokmeci, Ali Khademhosseini. “The emergence of 3D bioprinting in organ-on-chip systems.” Progress in Biomedical Engineering, 2019, 1 012001.
  • Kirsten Fetah, Andrea Kasko, March 23rd 2026. Pathogen-Inspired Polymers for Applications in Gene Delivery. 2026 American Chemical Society Spring Meeting, Atlanta, GA.
  • Kirsten Fetah, Andrea Kasko, March 26th 2025. Amino Acid-Based Polymers for Applications in Gene Delivery. 2025 American Chemical Society Spring Meeting, San Diego, CA.
  • Kirsten Fetah, Andrea Kasko, June 24th 2024. Amino Acid-Based Polymers for Applications in Gene Delivery. 2024 UC Systemwide Bioengineering Symposium, San Diego, CA.
  • Kirsten Fetah, Hyojin Ko, Kasinan Suthiwanich, Héloïse Mary, Somayeh Zanganeh, Shu-Kai Hu, Samad Ahadian, Yunzhi Yang, Goro Choi, Yuting Niu, Jeremy J Mao, Ali Khademhosseini, Oct. 17th, 2019. A Layer-Stacking Technique to Generate Biomolecular and Mechanical Gradients in Photocrosslinkable Hydrogels. Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA.

Topics

  • Bioinspired polymer chemistry

  • Drug and gene delivery

  • Stimuli-responsive polymers

Courses

  • BIOL 211 Biology of Cells

  • CHEM 330 Cellular Biochemistry

  • BIOL492 Gene Therapy and Nanomedicine