Eliteimmune is a drug discovery and development company focused on the creation of antibody-based drugs for the targeted treatment of Infectious disease. Based on its proprietary CellProbe™and CellSeq™ platform, Eliteimmune is building a strong pipeline of rare human antibodies with superior selectivity, affinity and other characteristics. Its proprietary technology platform uses donor B cells or cultured plasma cells obtained from blood or lymphoid organs.

IBT is an emerging research-based biotechnology company using an integrated multidisciplinary approach for discovery and development of anti-infective vaccines and drugs with an emphasis on emerging infectious disease and biodefense.Current Projects:1. Filovirus and Arenavirus monoclonal antibody discovery- B cell isolation, antibody cloning and mammalian expression2. Antibody characterization 3. Antibody engineering – affinity maturation, antibody-drug conjugates, bi-specific antibodies 4. Rational vaccine design – protein engineering5. Virus neutralization assays6. In-vivo immunogenicity and efficacy studies

Emphasized techniques include:Virology/Molecular Biology: Generation of pseduotyped viruses, RNA viruses, vesicular syncytial virus (VSV), virus neutralization assays, antibody characterization, protein characterization, epitope mapping, ELISA, Luciferase based cell assays, PCR, RT-PCR, cloning, site directed mutagenesis, vector design, SDS-PAGE, Western blot, BCAImmunology: Antibody discovery, T cell and B cell isolation from whole blood, spleen, lymph nodes, MACS, flow cytometry (FACS), cell surface proteins, antibody cloning, memory B cell culturing, B cell stimulationBiochemical/Biophysical: Protein characterization, protein expression, antibody expression, antibody purification, enzyme kinetics (Octet Red Bio-Layer Interferometry, BLI), ForteBio, epitope binning, cooperative binding, antibody synergyTissue culture: Mouse hybridomas, HEK293T, Vero, BHK-21, HeLa, HEK suspension cells, NIH 3T3 cells

I serve University of Maryland Baltimore researchers and inventors as a liaison to parties interested in licensing UMB research, methods, or materials for academic or corporate endeavors. My primary responsibilities include researching technologies for market applications and contacting interested biotech, pharmaceutical, or startup companies. I also responsible for preparing Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII) grants and researching additional sources of funding for UMB inventors.

Protein engineering via solid phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) provides a unique way to study protein interactions at the molecular level. I have used SPPS to chemically synthesize HIV-1 capsid protein and engineered mutants to investigate the molecular mechanisms regulating capsid dimerization during virus assembly. In addition, I have combined synthetically engineered and recombinant proteins to design a high-throughput drug screening assay. Using HTS, I have identified several small compound inhibitors of HIV capsid assembly, which may have therapeutic potential. Emphasized techniques include: Biochemical/Biophysical: Solid Phase Peptide Synthesis (SPPS), Native Chemical Ligation, Protein Purification, Size exclusion and Ion Exchange Chromatography, Analytical and Preparatory HPLC, ESI and LC Mass Spectrometry, UV and Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Fluorescence Anisotropy/Polarization, NMR-HSQC, X-ray Crystallography, CD Spectroscopy, Analytical Ultracentrifugation, BIAcore. Molecular: Recombinant Protein Expression, siRNA, PCR, Viral Assays, ELISA, DNA Vector design, SDS-PAGE, Western Blot, Gel Electrophoresis, Bacterial and Mammalian cell culture cells (XL10, BL21, Origami, CHO, U937, HEK293, HeLa, PM1, 293T, Jurkat, THP-1, NSC-34). Other: High Throughout Screening, Small Molecule Library Screening, Negative Stain Electron Microscopy.Software/Equipment: EMPOWER, MassLynx, Waters, Aglient, GraphPad Prism, WinNonlin, Pymol, COOT, CCP4, TECAN M1000, Excel, Word, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop,

Graduate Program in Life Science's Bioinformatics class- Syllabus included protein database searching, protein modeling and structural analysis

PCAST is an advisory group of the Nation’s leading scientists and engineers, who directly advise the President and the Executive Office of the President. PCAST makes policy recommendations in the many areas where understanding of science, technology, and innovation is key to strengthening our economy and forming policy that works for the American people. As an intern, I worked under the Executive Director (Marjory Blumenthal), PCAST co-chairs, and PCAST members leading studies on locating and analyzing data and information, developing background papers, and other tasks necessary to facilitate PCAST studies and events.

The Office of Communications and Public Affairs is dedicated to promoting the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and connecting the public with the groundbreaking research taking place in our hospital and laboratories. As an intern, I was responsible for attending University events and communicating the events within UMB to the public via external publications.

Under the mentorship of Jeffery Deitch Ph.D. and Gordon Lutz Ph.D. I explored how neuronal AMPA receptor splice variants could differentially regular calcium flux in neurons.

Studied the pathophysiology of superoxide dismutase (SOD-1) knockout mice and how the loss of SOD-1 impacted disease progression to Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).