Vidhya Vijayakumar Email & Phone Number

Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Greater Boston Area

Next generation mRNA vaccine ------------------------------------ • Use SQZ microfluidic delivery platform to introduce mRNA encoding costimulatory molecules and membrane bound cytokines into human PBMCs.• Analyze mRNA stability and translation kinetics of base modified mRNA, 5’ and 3’ UTR modifications, determine sources of RNA degradation in current experimental workflow to improve delivery efficiency.• Develop functional assays to determine mRNA expression and enhanced T cell activation against Tumor Associated Antigens. Tumor agnostic vaccine platform------------------------------------• Developed Dendritic Cell expansion workflow to generate murine Bone Marrow Derived DCs (BMDCs) and human monocyte derived DCs (MoDCs)• Developed functional assay to determine T cell responses against unknown epitopes by coculture with tumor cells. • Established several tumor antigen reactive CD8 T cell clones by lentiviral transduction of TCR encoding constructs.Genome editing platform----------------------------• Optimized SQZ mediated delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 RNP machinery into primary human NK and T cells.• Designed guideRNA for exhaustion markers (TIGIT, PD1) and evaluated editing efficiency by T7 endonuclease assay and Sanger Sequencing.• Developed functional assays for edited cells to determine anti-tumor activity by in vitro coculture assay and tumor killing assay.

Greater Boston Area

Microbiology lab, Simmons College, Boston • Designed experiments to teach basic microbiology techniques for undergraduate nursing students.• Delivered lectures relevant to the theory.• Graded student performance and lab reports.

Greater Boston Area

Mentor : Dr. Paula Watnick• Generated several Vibrio cholerae metabolic mutants using a suicide vector-based double homologous recombination and fusion proteins by Gibson Assembly. • Studied the mechanism by which Vibrio cholerae senses extracellular sugars to regulate virulence gene expression and biofilm formation geared towards developing a cholera-specific “sugar diet” as therapy.• Developed an Infant Rabbit model of cholera to study in vivo metabolic regulation of virulence.• Using above model, executed targeted metabolomics on rabbit cecal fluid to understand mechanism by which diarrheal pathogens alter intestinal metabolites.

Baltimore, Maryland Area

Mentor : Dr. James P. Nataro• Established and trained laboratory personnel on C. rodentium-induced mouse model of infectious colitis. • Used several Lambda Red recombinase to delete and rescue genes encoding Type 5 secretion system (T5SS) effectors in E. coli pathotypes, Shigella and C. rodentium. • Uncovered that T5SS effectors disable leukocyte trafficking to the intestinal epithelium by cleaving surface adhesion ligands.

Doctor Of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Molecular Microbiology And Immunology

Bachelor'S Degree, Biotechnology