Virgil Percec (born December 8, 1946)[1] is a Romanian-American chemist and P. Roy Vagelos Chair and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania.

Expert in organic, macromolecular and supramolecular chemistry including self-assembly, biological membrane mimics, complex chiral systems, and catalysis.

[10][11][12][13] He revealed double-helices disregarding chirality and deracemization in crystal state, designed the sequence-rearrangement concept to transform dynamic racemic (atactic) into homochiral (isotactic) supramolecular polymers[14] and demonstrated acceleration of self-assembly and disassembly by fluorine and fluorous phase.

[20][21] Percec discovered that the one-component multifunctional sequence-defined amphiphilic Janus dendrimer is an efficient delivery system for mRNA.

Designed and synthesized several libraries containing sequence-defined multifunctional ionizable amphiphilic Janus dendrimer (IAJD) by an accelerated modular-orthogonal methodology.

Demonstrated they co-assemble with mRNA into dendrimersome nanoparticles (DNPs) by a simple injection method rather than by the complex microfluidic technology.

These sequence-defined IAJDs and DNPs are being employed to elucidate the mechanisms of encapsulation and release of mRNA from supramolecular virus-like assemblies and for the production of vaccines and drugs.