Designing and managing all phases of non-clinical Molecular Imaging studies including maintaining regulatory compliance, coordinating multi-disciplinary teams (e.g., formulations, radiochemistry, in-life, clinical pathology, surgery, necropsy, image analysis, statistics, etc.) and reporting. Serving as the key contact and technical advisor to Sponsors to successfully execute their studies and help advance their Test Articles along the IND application process.

Developed and implemented fMRI acquisition and data processing techniques to study brainiac-wide intrinsic connectivity networks in anesthetized and awake mice in the laboratory of Dr. Yen-Yu Ian Shih. The research focused on three major areas of study: 1) the involvement of collateral circulation on the reduction of infarct core and penumbra size following an MCAO stroke model in mice; 2) the role of chronic neuroinflammation in remodeling the cerebrovasculature and functional connectivity… Show more Developed and implemented fMRI acquisition and data processing techniques to study brainiac-wide intrinsic connectivity networks in anesthetized and awake mice in the laboratory of Dr. Yen-Yu Ian Shih. The research focused on three major areas of study: 1) the involvement of collateral circulation on the reduction of infarct core and penumbra size following an MCAO stroke model in mice; 2) the role of chronic neuroinflammation in remodeling the cerebrovasculature and functional connectivity within and between intrinsic connectivity networks; and 3) the role of norepinephrine release from noradrenergic locus coeruleus neurons on the activity and functional connectivity within and between the default-mode network. Show less

Attempting to understand the mechanism that govern the vicious cycle of ROS and RNS release from reactive microgliosis in the pathogenesis of in vitro and in vivo models of Parkinson‘s disease in the laboratory of Dr. Jau-Shyong Hong. Specifically, characterizing the interactions between microglia and astrocytes during neuroinflammation. Furthermore, my recent work is exploring changes at the naurovascular unit of these models.

Attempted to isolate a unique pyrene-degrading bacterium that is present in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon contaminated soils—collected from a manufactured gas plant superfund site in North Carolina—in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Aitken. Assisted in characterizing the metabolic profile of the pryrene degradation using Stable-Isotope Probing on individual PAH-degrading genes from our bacteria—as identified using Pyrosequencing—cloned into E. coli.

Attempted to establish the role of induced metabolic syndrome—through supplementing a high-fat, high-cholesterol diet with high stress conditions—and the development and progression of Alzheimer‘s disease (AD) in rodent models with and without genetic disposition for developing some of the symptoms usually attributed to AD in the laboratory of Dr. Carol Colton.

Attempted to establish sex-specific, cerebral ischemia-induced molecular pathways using cultured primary astrocytes from several strains of genetically engineered mice that have either a genetic ablation or under-express a wide assortment of ischemia-induced genes in laboratories of Drs. Mingyue Liu and Patricia Hurn. By using an agent to inhibit DNA methylation, we were beginning to understand how epigenetics may play a role in the sex-specific differences in the incidence of Stroke.

Assisted with setting up labs involving Drosophila breeding, yeast cloning, computational modelling of progeny lines and computational bioinformatics for the Genetics course taught by Dr. John Jungck at Beloit College.

Developed a novel enrichment and micro-dilution technique for the field detection of Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli in the laboratory of Dr. Omar Oyarzabal. Assisted in the groundwork studies for the development of a surface plasmon resonance biosensor for the identification of Campylobacter jejuni in a joint collaboration with Dr. Alexi Simonian.

Optimized a novel PCR technique for the detection of Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli and validated its efficacy on broiler carcasses washes collected at poultry slaughter and processing facilities throughout the states of Alabama and Georgia in the laboratory of Dr. James Barbaree.

Characterized the metabolism, drug-resistance and role of RuBisCo in several newly derived mutant strains of Cyanobacteria in the laboratory of Dr. Martin Spalding.