The goal of my project is to develop in vitro T cell proliferation assays to assess the immunogenicity of candidate biologics.• Isolate primary human peripheral blood mononuclear cells from buffy coats• Differentiate mature dendritic cells from human monocytes using GM-CSF and IL-4 to set up dendritic cell-T cell co-culture assays• Measure T cell proliferation by BrdU incorporation and CFSE dilution using flow cytometry • Optimize assay conditions to minimize non-specific T cell proliferation and increase sensitivity

The Make-a-Thon is a multi-university competition in which students have 48 hours to design and prototype a medical device that solves a given clinical problem• Oversee a committee of four to plan and execute the 2018 Make-a-Thon• Coordinate over 100 students, faculty, doctors, and industry representatives involved in the Make-a-Thon• Draft and apply for educational grants from Genentech, Boston Scientific, and Autodesk• Manage event logistics, including team registration, promotional events, and event schedules

The goal of my project is to determine protein-protein interactions in cells surrounding the focal adhesion protein zyxin and signaling molecule Akt under force bearing conditions.• Designed and constructed plasmids containing biotin ligase tagged Akt• Established stable MDCK cell lines that express Akt conjugated with biotin ligase for proximal biotinylation stretch experiments• Designed and fabricated an improved version of a small scale cell stretch device using SolidWorks• Test the co-localization of various force-dependent proteins using immunofluorescence staining• Analyze force-sensitive protein interactions using Western Blots• Culture mammalian cells for cell stretch experiments

The goal of my project was to characterize and modulate Connexin 43 (Cx43) and N-cadherin (N-cad) expression in hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes and multiple fibroblast populations in order to better engineer cardiomyocyte-fibroblast interactions in 3D cardiac microtissues• Characterized the expression of Cx43 in different fibroblast populations using immunofluorescence staining and Western Blotting• Designed and inserted guide RNAs targeting Cx43 and N-cad into dCas9-KRAB containing plasmids for the generation of knockdown fibroblast and cardiomyocyte populations• Performed molecular cloning techniques and optimized protocols for immunofluorescence staining and Western Blotting• Presented poster and oral presentation on “Engineering Cardiomyocyte-Fibroblast Interactions in 3D Cardiac Microtissues” at end of summer symposium

The goal of my project was to identify the proteases that cleave the 26S proteasome activator PI31 in Drosophila melanogaster• Identified a PI31-cleaving protease as an uncharacterized protease in the Drosophila database• Performed serial size exclusion, ion exchange, and affinity chromatography to enrich individual protease activities • Traced PI31-cleavage activity using Western Blots• Collected Drosophila embryos for analysis• Presented poster titled "Identification of PI31-cleaving proteases in Drosophila melanogaster" at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS)• Presented poster “Identification of PI31-cleaving proteases” at end of summer symposium• The lab is currently continuing to validate the identified PI31-cleaving protease and its function