Protein conjugation chip funded by NIH

Today the Pompano lab is celebrating a notice of funding for our focused R03 proposal. In collaboration with the Landers lab, we are building a microchip to help researchers efficiently add fluorophores to proteins without trial and error.

Many thanks to the National Institutes of Health, specifically the NIBIB (National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering), for funding this exciting work.

Kudos to PhD student Andrew Kinman for leading this project and helping craft a successful grant proposal.

Visit to Chinese University of Hong Kong

It was very special to be invited to speak at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in the department of Chemistry, meeting up with former Ismagilov-lab colleague Prof. Bo Zheng for the day. Plus we got a beautiful view from the top of the mountain that this unique university is built upon.

Microfluidics GRC in Hong Kong

Prof. Pompano and Jennifer Ortiz made the trek to Hong Kong to present in the 2019 Gordon Research Conference for Physics and Chemistry of Microfluidics. It was a wonderful conference, filled with much exciting new data as well as new and old friends. Plus we had a great time exploring. Jenn’s poster, Rebecca’s poster on Meg and Sophie’s recent work, and Rebecca’s short talk went over well and we received lots of valuable feedback. Look for papers on these topics soon!

Prof. Pompano featured in LabRoots virtual event

Prof. Pompano was an invited speaker for the LabRoots virtual event on Laboratory Testing & Automation 2019 on May 30. This is a free online conference featuring leaders in microfluidics giving presentations and tutorials on their work. You can stream it online for several months afterwards at http://bit.ly/lab-auto-2019 .

Supporting young researchers at science fair

In March, Pompano Lab member Maura Belanger volunteered as a judge for the 2019 Virginia Piedmont Regional Science Fair, where hundreds high school and middle school students from all over the state came and shared their projects! This annual event is a great way to get students interested in science and interact with the community at large. It’s always an inspiration to see these students get excited about sharing their experiments! Congrats to all the winners this year!!

Spring conference season

The Pompano lab sent a cohort both to Pittcon and to the Society for Biomaterials annual meeting last month.

• Pittcon 2019, Philadelphia, PA — Maura, Andrew, Austin, Parris, Jon, and Alyssa all presented posters or oral presentations. Dr. Pompano also gave two invited symposium talks. Our presentations ranged from microfluidics to bioanalytical chemistry for live tissue.

• Society for Biomaterials 2019, Seattle, WA — Jenn presented a poster and Dr. Pompano started her term as Treasurer and Secretary of the Immunoengineering Special Interest Group.

It was great to hear so much exciting science. Everyone returned very motivated!

St. Patrick’s Day at Pittcon opening night

Jenn at SFB

1st-yr Jon Zatorski wins NSF GRFP

We are thrilled and honored that first-year PhD student Jon Zatorski was awarded an Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation this week. This is a major accomplishment that reflects Jon’s hard work throughout his college career, in our lab over the summer before grad school officially began, and in the fall semester to draft a strong proposal and personal statement while also juggling coursework and teaching commitments. We are very excited to see what he achieves over the next few years!

Hutcheson undergraduate award

We are very proud of Eirini Stylianopoulos for being awarded a Hutcheson Undergraduate Research Fellowship for summer 2019! This competitive award is generously funded by a charitable gift from Randy and Rossie Hutcheson, for top undergraduates working in Carter Immunology Center labs on immunology projects. We look forward to Eirini’s work on antibody-based reagents to sense cytokines!

Harrison & DoubleHoo research awards

We are very proud of our stellar undergraduate researchers, who continue to win competitive awards for their work:

• Alyssa Montalbine was awarded a Harrison Grant to fund her research on a synthetic lymph node scaffold this summer

• Tim Freeman and Meg Catterton were awarded a DoubleHoo award to fund their collaborative work to measure the diffusion of proteins through inflammed tissues

  Congratulations!

Welcome Alex Ball

A warm welcome to Alex Ball, a first-year PhD student in the Biomedical graduate program (BIMS), specializing in Immunology. We are delighted to have Alex join the group and look forward to his work looking at vaccine responses in lymph node slices. Check out this photo from the BIMS “white-coat” ceremony, where Alex got his lab coat!