Tissue Material Science (Plastic Surgery)

Bryers Lab Group in the Department of Bioengineering• Developed novel assays to identify biomarkers and unravel molecular signaling mechanisms of monocytes, macrophages, and T cells responsible for orchestrating a pro-healing phenotype within precision-engineered biomaterial scaffolds.• Facilitated a cross-functional collaboration with the Center for Lung Biology to advance understanding of fibrosis and the host immune response to biomaterials.• Mentored, supervised, and trained 10+ undergraduate and high school students in interdisciplinary biomedical engineering projects. Key Accomplishments:• Drove significant advancements in the field of wound healing resulting in the successful publication of 2 first-author articles in peer-reviewed journals, 1 manuscript in revision, and 10+ scientific talks/posters at internal and national conferences.• Pioneered a robust quantitative cell phenotyping algorithm using multiplex immunofluorescence and the HALO tissue analysis platform to analyze over 750 images to achieve a 90% precision rate and eliminate 95% of false-positive auto-fluorescence detection.• Processed over 100 clinical samples (blood, lung, and cardiac tissues) for the UW Lung Transplant and Cardiac Biorepositories to advance future translational and extracellular vesicle research investigating complications of lung transplant and cardiac surgery.

Physiology Lab• Applied translational-based approaches and advanced ex-vivo tissue analysis to develop and understand a preclinical disease model for pressure overload-induced heart failure with the aim of developing novel therapeutics for age-related diseases in humans.• Mentors: Ganesh Kolumam and Chunlian Zhang

• Managed the enhancement of a Microsoft Excel-based automatic marking system by supervising the development of a Python-based web application used to process data generated in 2nd and 3rd year undergraduate labs• Designed the operating conditions on a fast protein liquid chromatography system to improve the resolution and separation in anion exchange, cation exchange, and hydrophobic interaction chromatography for undergraduate labs

• Developed, implemented, and validated a MATLAB non-linear computation tool to model the high-throughput screening of aptamers to a target protein via HiFi SELEX technology, resulting in the recovery of 10^4 candidate aptamers from an initial 10^14 DNA aptamer library.• Generated high-affinity aptamers surpassing previous technologies by 5 orders of magnitude through a digital-PCR-based technique.

• Engineered the process scale-up, cost analysis, and equipment sizing for magnetic nanoparticles in compliance with cGMP for the technology transfer to CMOs, achieving a 500% production capacity increase and a 25% cost reduction through efficient resource allocation and optimization.• Achieved a 15% improvement in nanoparticle size distribution by optimizing tangential flow filtration and size exclusion chromatography parameters, while implementing rigorous quality control measures, including zeta potential, dynamic light scattering, thermogravimetric analysis, and osmolality characterization.

• Operated multiple fully-functional, highly pressurized, metal catalytic lab reactors undergoing proprietary Sugar-to-Glycol technology for the commercialization of bio-glycol production by performing daily hands on engineering and mechanical maintenance, sampling, and project design based off data analysis of lab scale analytical tests.• Maintained high-levels of safety in a lab and pilot plant environment by following, learning, and understanding the standard operating procedures of equipment and unit operations including a vibratory shear enhanced processing (VSEP) system, decanter and bowl centrifuge, granulated activated carbon system, ion-exchange system, enzymatic hydrolysis vessel, and electro dialysis (ED).

• Optimized a novel approach for neonatal porcine islet cell encapsulation, achieving a >90% cell viability and developing an ImageJ image analysis pipeline that increased efficiency by 50% for the accurate categorization of alginate beads.