About

Cecilia Leal, Ph.D., is a Professor and Racheff Faculty Scholar in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She leads the Leal Research Lab, which is affiliated with the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, the Materials Research Laboratory, and the Beckman Institute. Her research group focuses on the study of lipid-based nanoparticles, lipid droplet dynamics, and the mechanical, structural, and functional properties of synthetic and cell-derived membranes. The lab investigates topics such as endosomal escape of lipid-based nanoparticles comprising Gaussian curvature lipids, mechanisms and barriers to lipid nanoparticle-mediated drug delivery, and the fabrication of polymer-lipid hybrid membranes for mimicking synaptic plasticity and ion transport. Additionally, her group explores the structural coloration in biofilms and bio-derived photonic materials through mesoscale supracellular characterization. Dr. Leal's work integrates interdisciplinary approaches to understand and manipulate lipid systems for biomedical and materials science applications.

Research topics

• Materials science
• Nanotechnology
• Chemistry
• Computer Security
• Computer Science
• Physics
• Physical chemistry
• Cell biology
• Biomedical engineering
• Organic chemistry
• Computational chemistry
• Combinatorial chemistry
• Biology
• Pharmacology
• Polymer chemistry
• Medicine
• Biochemistry
• Metallurgy
• Chemical physics

Selected publications

• Cholesteryl Esters Modulate Lipid Droplet Rigidity and Monolayer Organization during Liver Cancer Progression

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2026-05-05

  articleOpen access

  In mammalian cells, lipid monolayers support the integrity of lipid droplets (LDs), organelles that function as storage for neutral lipids. Liver-targeting illnesses such as liver cancer interrupt normal LD metabolism and prompt changes in the chemical content of these organelles, which can have effects on structural and organizational behavior of the lipids. In LDs, liver cancer induces concentric crystalline phases of cholesteryl esters (CEs) and triglycerides near the NL-monolayer interface, which become more pronounced as CE concentration increases. Yet, there is little known about how this phenomenon may link to persistence of undigested LDs in liver cancer patients. To shed light on this, all-atom molecular dynamics simulations were used to model LD micropipette aspiration experiments and gain insight into the effect of CE concentration on partitioning, structural, and mechanical properties of LDs. We successfully model micropipette aspiration by application of constant surface tension laterally, which stretches lipid bilayers and monolayers as the magnitude increased. The results show increased phospholipid packing due to insertion of CE fatty tails into the monolayer. Increasing CE concentration induces a non-linear change in surface packing defects on the LDs, notable rigidification, and stiffness. Taken together, these insights improve our understanding of the physical properties at the LD monolayer-core interface during liver cancer progression.

  PublisherDOI

• Amazon dredging law exposes governance gaps

  Science · 2026-05-14

  articleOpen access

  Amazon dredging law exposes governance gapsA recent federal decree authorizing large-scale water resources development in the Amazon exposed weaknesses in Brazil's governance of the world's largest river basin (1).Passed in August, 2025, Federal Decree 12.600/2025 opened stretches of the Madeira, Tapajs, and Tocantins rivers to private dredging and waterway expansion under Brazil's National Privatization Program (2).Indigenous communities and civil society organizations argued that the decree advanced without adequate consultation under ILO Convention 169 or environmental assessment, raising concerns about violations of constitutionally protected rights (3).The decree also threatened to modify more than 3700 km of river channels, increasing turbidity and degrading habitats fundamental to biodiversity, fisheries, and regional food security (2,(4)(5)(6).Amid mounting collective mobilization and public political pressure, President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva revoked the decree in February (7).To prevent similar decrees from passing in the future, Brazil should implement and enforce better protection of its rivers.The initial passage of Federal Decree 12.600/2025 reveals a structural problem: Brazil's regulatory framework treats rivers primarily as economic infrastructure.Interventions proceed through licensing that assesses projects in isolation, whereas cumulative basinwide impacts are largely neglected.However, rivers are interconnected social-ecological systems that sustain biodiversity and cultural identity (8).Waterways play a particularly important role in the Amazon, where nature and people's livelihoods depend intimately on rivers and their seasonal flood pulses (9).The presidential reversal of the Federal Decree 12.600/2025 is not an adequate substitute for durable legal safeguards.Brazil should adopt a national legal framework recognizing major rivers as rights-bearing entities.Granting legal standing to rivers would enable representation in court and require environmental licensing to address basin-level impacts rather than projects in isolation.Embedding these principles into federal law would reduce reliance on case-by-case political intervention.Subnational legislation in Minas Gerais demonstrates that enhanced legal status for rivers can be incorporated within Brazil's legal system (10).Supported by sustained civic engagement (11,12), national reform could extend enforceable protections to major Amazonian rivers and provide a model for other biodiverse basins facing infrastructure expansion.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Interplay Between Pulmonary Membrane Properties and Lung Disease: A Study of Seven Bottlenose Dolphins

  eLife · 2026-01-09

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Pneumonia is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality of bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus. We investigate a series of rare and opportunistic samples of pulmonary surfactant membranes (PSMs) extracted from lungs of seven dolphins in the care of the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program. We found a striking correlation between PSM structure, lipidome, and mechanical properties with the severity of lung injury. Specifically, lipidomics reveals exacerbated contents of cardiolipins, confirming a result obtained for terrestrial mammals afflicted by experimental pneumonia. Employing a battery of X-ray scattering, atomic force, and electron microscopy, we evaluate how the altered lipid composition impairs the structural integrity of the PSM and leads to dehydration and enhanced rigidity. Our findings demonstrate that the function of pulmonary surfactant membranes goes far beyond lowering alveolar surface tension, regulating their biochemical and biophysical properties with lung pathology progression. This knowledge will be useful to the development of future diagnostics and therapeutics of respiratory diseases targeting lung membranes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Diet and Exercise Drive Progressive, Depot-Specific Remodeling of Adipose Lipid Droplet Cargo

  Physiology · 2026-05-01

  article

  Adipose tissue, broadly classified into white (WAT) and brown adipose tissue (BAT), is an endocrine tissue with a wide-ranging capacity for energy storage and thermogenesis. Within adipocytes, excess energy is stored within large, unilocular lipid droplets (LDs) in WAT or small, multilocular LDs in BAT. While numerous studies have focused on whole-adipose depot characterization, we and others have demonstrated that LDs can be dramatically altered by obesogenic diets, altering both their lipid cargo and biophysical properties. Here, we characterized how diet and exercise progressively reshape LD cargo across WAT and BAT using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) based lipidomics. We utilized 8-week-old C57BL/6 male mice that were endurance exercise-trained (4-week voluntary wheel running) or sedentary (static cages) and fed a control (CD; 10% Kcal fat) or high-fat diet (HFD; 45% Kcal fat). First, we contrasted the whole-tissue and LD lipidomes across (four) WAT and BAT and confirmed the biased enrichment of triacylglycerols (TG) in LDs across depots, whereas acylcarnitines (CAR) were enriched in whole tissues. Further, we show that regardless of diet, inguinal WAT (ingWAT) from sedentary mice exhibited progressive increases in LD lipid variance (~220 lipids) across 12 weeks (12- vs. 4-wks; p< 0.01) supporting tight lipid packing. This was not observed for iBAT LDs (~360 lipids), remaining stable throughout 12 weeks. Conversely, regardless of diet, 4-week endurance training prevented fat mass gain and heightened ingWAT LD lipid variability, and only CD-fed mice reduced the long-chain ( >50 carbons) TG species with variable degrees of unsaturation, indicating widespread lipid remodeling. For iBAT LDs, 4-week training in CD-fed mice reduced and in HFD-fed mice heightened LD cargo variability, compared to diet-matched controls, and HFD-fed trained mice reduced long-chain, unsaturated TG. To demonstrate if the effects of exercise on LD cargo persist once training stops, we profiled LD lipids after 4 weeks of detraining (8wk) followed by 4-week retraining (12wk). Detraining produced similar ingWAT LD lipid variability across all groups, reflecting the catch-up adiposity observed in previously trained groups, although variability remained lower than the training period (8- vs. 4-wks; p< 0.0001). Retraining reversed this pattern: adiposity decreased and ingWAT LD lipid variance increased relative to detraining (12- vs. 8-wks; p< 0.001), though variance did not reach that of diet-matched controls. Only a small number of lipids decreased with retraining, all of which were saturated TG (~50 carbons), pointing to flexible LD lipid packing. Together, findings show that diet and exercise dynamically reshape LD composition across adipose depots, altering lipid packing flexibility that may determine metabolic adaptations and thermogenic function. This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2026 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.

  PublisherDOI

• Reviewer #2 (Public review): Interplay Between Pulmonary Membrane Properties and Lung Disease: A Study of Seven Bottlenose Dolphins

  2026-01-09

  peer-reviewOpen accessSenior author

  Pneumonia is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality of bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus. We investigate a series of rare and opportunistic samples of pulmonary surfactant membranes (PSMs) extracted from lungs of seven dolphins in the care of the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program. We found a striking correlation between PSM structure, lipidome, and mechanical properties with the severity of lung injury. Specifically, lipidomics reveals exacerbated contents of cardiolipins, confirming a result obtained for terrestrial mammals afflicted by experimental pneumonia. Employing a battery of X-ray scattering, atomic force, and electron microscopy, we evaluate how the altered lipid composition impairs the structural integrity of the PSM and leads to dehydration and enhanced rigidity. Our findings demonstrate that the function of pulmonary surfactant membranes goes far beyond lowering alveolar surface tension, regulating their biochemical and biophysical properties with lung pathology progression. This knowledge will be useful to the development of future diagnostics and therapeutics of respiratory diseases targeting lung membranes.

  PublisherDOI

• In vivo metabolic tagging and targeting of circulating red blood cells

  Nature Communications · 2026-03-21

  articleOpen access

  Engineering red blood cells (RBCs) has been widely explored for drug delivery, imaging, vaccination, and other applications. However, effective strategies to directly engineer RBCs in vivo are still lacking. Here, we report successful metabolic glycan labeling of RBCs in vivo. We demonstrate that systemically administered azido-sugars can metabolically label circulating RBCs with azido groups, through labeling of both mature RBCs and RBC precursor cells. The surface azido tags on RBCs can persist for over 42 days in female mice (nearly the lifespan of RBCs), while tags on leukocytes decay to negligible levels within 3 days. Azido-labeled RBCs can covalently capture dibenzocyclooctyne-bearing cargos in vivo via click chemistry, extending cargo circulation from hours to over 35 days. This RBC tagging and targeting technology can improve fluorescence imaging of blood vessels, enable long-term MRI of brain vasculatures with a single gadolinium dose, and improve the pharmacokinetics of drugs.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• BPS2026 – Engineering structural complexity in lipid nanoparticles to enhance their fusogenicity

  Biophysical Journal · 2026-02-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Reviewer #3 (Public review): Interplay Between Pulmonary Membrane Properties and Lung Disease: A Study of Seven Bottlenose Dolphins

  2026-01-09

  peer-reviewOpen accessSenior author

  Pneumonia is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality of bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus. We investigate a series of rare and opportunistic samples of pulmonary surfactant membranes (PSMs) extracted from lungs of seven dolphins in the care of the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program. We found a striking correlation between PSM structure, lipidome, and mechanical properties with the severity of lung injury. Specifically, lipidomics reveals exacerbated contents of cardiolipins, confirming a result obtained for terrestrial mammals afflicted by experimental pneumonia. Employing a battery of X-ray scattering, atomic force, and electron microscopy, we evaluate how the altered lipid composition impairs the structural integrity of the PSM and leads to dehydration and enhanced rigidity. Our findings demonstrate that the function of pulmonary surfactant membranes goes far beyond lowering alveolar surface tension, regulating their biochemical and biophysical properties with lung pathology progression. This knowledge will be useful to the development of future diagnostics and therapeutics of respiratory diseases targeting lung membranes.

  PublisherDOI

• Introducing a fusogenicity metric for lipid nanoparticle formulation

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2026-03-04

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are the most successful drug delivery carrier to date, but optimizing lipid formulations to improve membrane fusion capabilities for effective drug release has been challenging due to lack of a quantitative measure for fusogenicity. Here we introduce a new framework based on small angle X-ray scattering to experimentally measure for lipids used in LNP formulations such as glycerol monooleate (GMO) and ionizable lipids (SM-102 and ALC-0315). Q intrinsically captures spontaneous curvature ( J 0 ), which is traditionally used to assess fusogenicity. The change of cubic lattice parameters with temperature was measured for GMO-containing lipid mixtures, and the Q extracted quantitatively correlated with LNP fusogenicity power validated by fluorescence-based fusion assays and cryogenic electron microscopy. Fusogenicity of SM-102 and ALC-0315 was quantified by adding them to host membranes and assessing change in Q . This framework provides researchers with the ability to optimize the fusogenicity of LNP formulations for potent drug release and enhances understanding of parameters governing fusion in all biomembranes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• BPS2026 – Ionizable lipids induce non-thermal fluctuations and curvature remodeling in endosomal mimic membranes

  Biophysical Journal · 2026-02-01

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Endosomal escape of lipid-based nanoparticles comprising Gaussian curvature lipids

  NIH · $1.3M · 2022–2026

• CAREER: Nanostructured Soft Substrates for Responsive Bioactive Coatings

  NSF · $500k · 2016–2023

• Endosomal escape of lipid-based nanoparticles comprising Gaussian curvature lipids

  NIH · $398k · 2022–2026

• A New Paradigm in Nanomedicine: can structural interiors of nanoparticles regulate cellular delivery?

  NIH · $2.3M · 2016–2021

Frequent coauthors

• André Schleife

  National Center for Supercomputing Applications

  47 shared

• Hojun Kim

  Korea Institute of Science and Technology

  38 shared

• Pinshane Y. Huang

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  35 shared

• Jessica A. Krogstad

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  35 shared

• Matthew D. Goodman

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  31 shared

• Kisung Kang

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  25 shared

• Yoo Kyung Go

  University of Illinois System

  25 shared

• Nancy R. Sottos

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  22 shared

Labs

• Leal Research LabPI

  Meet the team!

Awards & honors

• University of Illinois Provost's Distinguished Promotion to…
• University of Illinois Scholar (2023)
• Illinois Grainger College of Engineering Dean's Award for Ex…
• Racheff Faculty Scholar Award (2019)
• University of Illinois Provost Distinguished Promotion to As…