Role was impacted by Amgen economic restructuring, effective March 2023.-----------Worked on a range of assays supporting a brand new project that is still in the discovery phase. Performed cell-based assays to screen activity of GPCRs. Contributed to cell line generation and their characterization by flow cytometry. Designed and validated over 80 qPCR primers to study genes from various metabolic pathways. Processed different animal tissues for RNA extraction and expression measurement by RT-qPCR.

In this fast-paced start-up environment, I had an opportunity to take initiative and contribute on many different levels.As an associate scientist, I co-lead a T-Cell Receptor (TCR) discovery branch with proprietary iSORT technology for isolating new TCRs against specified tumor-associated targets. I also work on the validation team testing TCRs that come down our pipeline: Isolating human T cells from PBMCs, making virus and transducing T cells with our constructs; then expanding and screening transduced T cells, and finally setting up different cell-based assays to confirm target-specific TCR activity. I was the first employee at T-Cure and I was also instrumental in setting up lab management infrastructure from the ground up to establish a strong foundation for organization, record-keeping, ordering, inventory, equipment maintenance, and everything in between that's required to run and grow a small company. This ultimately evolved into another one of my roles as a Benchling administrator, designing and setting up the Benchling registry & inventory and overseeing transition into a structured and organized team-oriented system with accountability and detailed documentation.Please reach out to me if you would like more information.

Handled the entire work flow of screening and validating novel TCRs: * Isolating human T cells from PBMCs* making virus and transducing T cells with our constructs* expanding and screening transduced T cells* setting up different cell-based assays to confirm target-specific TCR activityI was the first employee at T-Cure and I was also instrumental in setting up lab management infrastructure from the ground up to establish a strong foundation for organization, record-keeping, ordering, inventory, equipment maintenance, and everything in between that's required to run and grow a small company. This ultimately evolved into another one of my roles as a Benchling administrator, designing and setting up the Benchling registry & inventory and overseeing transition into a structured and organized team-oriented system with accountability and detailed documentation.Please reach out to me if you would like more information.

At this small biopharmaceutical start-up that develops first-in-class drugs targeting cancer progression pathways, I was part of the preclinical research team working on all the aspects of experimental work, data analysis, as well as writing and editing reports that led to FDA approval of Phase I clinical study, currently in progress. My contributions include developing qPCR-based biomarker analysis methods for the clinical trial, cell-based assays for screening potential new therapeutic compounds, and in vivo studies in mice. This work allowed us to evaluate efficacy of lead compounds and determine optimal in vivo treatment doses and formulations through pharmacokinetic (PK), pharmacodynamic (PD), and tumor growth studies. I also took initiatives to bring improvements and contribute in new ways. For example, I set up and maintained an inventory management system for the company and improved organization of the office and lab.

Working on research of discovering rare Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with schizophrenia and investigating their functional mode-of-action using molecular biology experiments and cellular models. Latest work includes differentiation of iPSCs into Cortical and Dopaminergic neurons and Genome-editing of iPSCs using CRISPR constructs. Past work included: gene expression studies in iPSCs and neurons; sequencing putative Schizophrenia-associated regions for a study of rare SNPs, and follow-up experiments to determine the functional impact of found SNPs.

My research in Dr. Leonard's lab focused on developing a computational model of signal transduction pathways involved in functional polarization of macrophages in tumor microenvironment. This was a new project for the lab, so I was responsible for researching and testing various pathway-modeling tools, for making decisions about which pathway cascade and cross-talk components to include in the model, and for doing a thorough published literature search for informing these decisions and finding kinetic data to use in the equations. Bench work included developing and testing virally-transduced human macrophage cell lines for future lab use of obtaining kinetic data for the model. Experience with sterile animal cell culture, lentivirus production and concentration, and transduction optimization experiments.

Masters of Biotechnology ProgramMcCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University

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