Brandon Hinkel Email & Phone Number

Pleasanton, California, United States

Chromium Connect sustaining activities. Assist Field and Tech support teams troubleshoot challenging customer issues with hardware and assays.Develop solutions for software/method bugs discovered by customers.Maintain relationships with 10X hardware suppliers for advanced troubleshooting and hardware repair.Maintain 10X Chromium Connect instruments in Pleasanton labs.Assist 10X Reagent ManufacturingWrite scripts/methods for use on manufacturing department's liquid handling instruments.Integrating new software tools to enable remote method development, enhanced code review, and remote code repositories.

Pleasanton, California, United States

Integration of new 10x assays onto Chromium Connect platform.Introduce new features to improve user experience. Enhanced error handling during instrument loading/unloading to eliminate pain points.Translation of code to format more suitable for code review. Reduce software footprint.

Pleasanton, Ca

Lead integration efforts on non-invasive prenatal testing assay on AVENIO Edge system. Wrote protocols, designed experiments to characterize automation performance at each assay step. Prepared weekly updates for assay and systems teams detailing experimental data, issues, and plans for future experiments.Development and optimization of liquid classes for use on AVENIO Edge system. Maintained master list of optimized liquid classes and preferred pipetting methods. Created raw data templates which allowed for quick data analysis, historical performance, and liquid class parameter access.Prototype hardware and software installations and upgrades: Provided debugging, hardware repair and maintenance, system troubleshooting support for multiple Roche sites. Trained lab users proper instrument usage techniques.

Newark, Ca

Assay Integration Team. Integrated bench assays onto automated proprietary platform. Integrated assays (Zika IgM and NAA) to Theranos miniLab platform using proprietary consumables, reagents and software. Developed liquid classes for use in miniLab protocol generating software. System level troubleshooting included investigating root cause analysis of hardware, consumable, reagent, and software failures.

Palo Alto, Ca

Responsible for automating bench ELISA assays for reagent testing using Tecan automated liquid handling systems.Designed and executed technical experiments for initial and ongoing development of assays using automated hardware.Wrote Tecan EVOware protocols, carried out experiments, and analyzed data for optimizing subsequent experimentsTroubleshoot scripting and hardware issues, as well as perform repairs on automation hardware.Trained technicians and laboratory personnel on proper hardware usage, performing daily bring up and shut down procedures, and basic troubleshooting procedures.Conducted and documented root cause analysis and investigation for prototype analyzer failure modes.

Probiotics are marketed throughout the world to promote the health of the consumer by improving the microorganisms that normally occur in the intestinal tract (Tannock, 1997). It has also been suggested that probiotics can prevent pathogen infections by adhering to the intestinal mucosa (Lee, Lim, Teng, Ouwehand, Tuomola, & Salminen, 2000). While probiotics can be delivered to the infected areas in multiple fashions, microencapsulation is a newer form of delivering probiotics straight to the infected area. A whey protein microcapsule is thought to protect the probiotics from stomach acid and delivers the treatment to the affected area. To ensure this microencapsulation treatment is affective, the microcapsules will be stained and imaged to see if the microcapsules are constructed in a way which is consistent with the theory: a whey protein microcapsule surrounding bacteria and fat droplets. Through these experiments, it was shown that the microcapsule was not constructed as previously thought. Instead of a thin layer of protein surrounding the bacteria, it more closely resembled a solid ball of protein with bacteria and fat trapped inside. The bacteria are able to survive stomach like conditions (0.1M HCl for 8 hours) due to other forms of microencapsulation.

Master Of Science (M.S.), Biomedical Engineering

Bachelor Of Science (B.S.), Biomedical Engineering