The Boston University Nanomedicine & Medical Acoustics Laboratory (Nano-MedAL) is a drug delivery and nanotechnology group under the guidance of Dr. Tyrone Porter. The lab focuses on the advancement of ultrasound in a medical setting and the development of stimuli-responsive drug carriers for therapeutic applications. My work focused on utilizing lipids and polymers to construct nanoscale-sized liposomes and micelles to encapsulate chemotherapeutics that will be carried through the blood stream and released by an environmentally sensitive mechanism to localize drug delivery. My projects explored the feasibility of using polymeric micelles composed of a novel pH-responsive polymer for localized paclitaxel delivery. The senior design project centered on development of a lipid-polymer hybrid vehicle to maximizes drug delivery properties. I worked to design and synthesize pH-sensitive liposome shell with a polymer core conjugated with siRNA specific to combatting inflammation due to atherosclerosis.

The Boston Universtiy Brain and Vision Lab is a clinical research lab under the guidance of neurologist Dr. Lucia Vaina. The lab focuses on rehabilitation of visually impaired stroke patients and exploration of the processes underlying this damage. My specific role involved administering the full battery of computerized virtual tests to these patients and assessing their performance. The tests covered a wide range of visual processes due to the fact the each specific lesion damages a certain portion of the visual processing stream. Therefore, it was necessary that I thoroughly understand concepts, specific parameters and manipulation of each of the over 200 tests to adequately administer them to these individuals. In addition, I assisted with the parameterization of the tests, served as a control subject and contributed to the image analysis of patient lesions.