Design and investigation of phagocyte-engaging synergies to improve efficacy of autologous CAR-T cell therapies toward solid tumors.Researched, designed, created, and tested novel activation-dependent promoters using transcription factor binding sites and minimal promoters to selectively express phagocyte engagers upon T-Cell activation.Interrogation of the mechanism of action (MoA) of synthetic immunomodulatory proteins using multiple molecular and cell biology methodologies in order to understand how they affect CAR-T function and related immune signaling pathways.Ran comparison studies of lead candidate alone vs. multi-modal approach using both the lead candidate and phagocyte-engagers.Triaging of diverse antigen binders (scFVs, VHHs, tVHHs) in CAR scaffolds in order to select lead candidates based on expression levels, killing potency, T-Cell phenotypes, and exhaustion markers.Lentiviral Pipeline Development for Translational Early Research DepartmentsDevelopment of robust assays for measuring infectivity, integration kinetics, vector copy number (VCN) measurements, and vector integrity on both DNA and RNA levels for T-Cells, Hematopoietic Stem Cells, and immortalized cell lines.Collaborated with Novartis Biologics Research Center (BRC) to develop scalability of above-mentioned assays for pre-clinical characterization and optimization.Comparison and characterization of diverse lentiviral production and purification methods for the purpose of making robust research-scale virus preps that are more similar to GMP-grade viruses.Engineered primary hematopoietic stem cells using lentiviral vectors for delivery of multiple RNAi expressing cassettes capable of reversing the phenotype of Sickle Cell Disease and allowing for high efficiency selection in-vivo. - Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) Collaboration.

Dept. of Immunology Research & Molecular Vector BiologyCoordinated with in-vivo pharmacology team to develop and optimize a γ-retrovirus pipeline for use in the creation of murine TCR Fusion expressing T-Lymphocytes for syngeneic mouse experiments.Designed, produced, titered, and optimized lentiviral & y-retroviral vectors for transduction of primary and immortalized T-Cells, NK-Cells, and Tumor Cells.Generated data using Nanostring RNA hybridization assays for characterization of downstream effects of TCR modification on immunomodulatory proteins & cytokines in primary human T-Cells.

Development of Bispecific T-Cell Engagers (BiTEs) for the targeting of glioblastoma and glioma cells and therapeutic engagement of cytotoxic T-lymphocytes.Optimized and created standardized lab protocols such as restriction endonuclease cloning protocol and lentiviral packaging & transduction of primary human T-Cells w/ Targeted CAR-T Constructs.General laboratory operations, organization, inventory management, and controlled substance regulation compliance.

Dept. of Agricultural and Biological Engineering | Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s SEA-PHAGES ProgramFound and Isolated genome of a novel bacteriophage (sequencing pending) and imaged phage particles with electron microscopy for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s SEA-PHAGES Program (linked below)https://phagesdb.org/phages/Meemlordius/

Purdue University - BIOL 195, BIOL 197, BIOL 232, BIOL 242

Dept. of Organic Chemistry | Dr. David H. Thompson Ph.D.Development of receptor-targeted, self-assembling, elastin-like polypeptide-based nanoparticles for the delivery of nucleic acids and diagnostic imaging in Non-Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer.Assisted in development of a high-throughput method for purification of elastin-like-polypeptides / fusion proteins using organic solvents followed by more canonical purification methods.

Dept. of Medical Oncology | Dr. Matthew Meyerson M.D. Ph.D.Performed and analyzed gene silencing experiments to validate and characterize ADAR1 gene dependency in a subset of lung cancer cell lines, as shown in the Cancer Dependency Map published by the Broad Institute.Implemented a batch processing method in ImageJ for cell proliferation analysis to reduce time spent on cell viability quantification.

Dept. of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology | Dr. Clark Wells Ph.D. Compared the activity of a selection of metabolic pathway promoters under the effects of serum vs non-serum conditions.Analyzed pediatric clinical tumor samples with Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) tool and mapped out pathways that were affected using R.