After a very productive summer of research the Pompano Lab went to the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington DC. We presented two posters, one of which was featured at SciMix!
Thanks to everyone at ACS and here is to another productive year!
Dr. Pompano co-led the Virginia delegation for AAI's Capitol Hill day, a day in which researchers from all over the country traveled to Capitol Hill to visit their Representatives and Senators and advocate for strong, steady support of funding for the National Institutes of Health. From Virginia, a group of four researchers from academia and a research institute met with the staff of Representatives Garrett and Wittman, and Senators Kaine and Warner. We thank them all for their agreement about the importance of biomedical research! We hope to see continued strong support from the House and Senate for the NIH.
In May, The Pompano lab sent a delegation to the American Association of Immunologist's annual conference, Immunology 2017, in Washington DC. It was great to take in some cutting-edge immunology research! We presented three posters:
Maura Belanger: “Validation of murine lymph node slices as a viable and functional experimental platform.” Co-authors included Ashley, Andrew, and Ben (undergraduate). **Congratulations to Maura, who won a Student Travel Award for her poster!
Ashley Ross: “Diffusional analysis of cytokines in lymph node tissue on a microfluidic chip.”
Kristen Richey (undergraduate): "Bright blue fluorescent nanoparticles for live cell imaging by fluorescence microscopy." This was a collaboration with Meng Zhuang and Cassandra Fraser.
Look for the papers on these topics later this summer!
The science policy decisions and research advances made in the next few years have the potential to impact the quality of life on earth for decades or even centuries to come. Scientific data needs to inform decisions made on everything from addressing the changing climate, to choosing which energy sources to invest in, to regulating pharmaceuticals and genetically modified foods. Furthermore, scientific research (largely funded by the U.S. government) is needed to solve major societal problems -- for example, by researching how diseases progress and how best to stop them. We marched to bring attention to all of these issues, and to help fire up the scientific community to promote continued advocacy going forward.
On April 22, 2017, Dr. Pompano and her family marched right here in Charlottesville, while Jenn Ortiz made the trip to Washington, DC to be part of the 40,000 scientists and supporters who participated in the main march. We were proud to be part of this world-wide event.
Dr. Pompano and Ashley Ross had a successful trip to Pittcon 2017 in Chicago, IL earlier this month. Dr. Pompano co-hosted a symposium entitled "Microanalytical Techniques for Immunology" alongside Christopher Love (MIT), in the first immunology-focused session at Pittcon, to our knowlege. Ashley presented an oral presentation on her newest work, using a microfluidic method to quantify diffusion of cytokines through lymph node tissue. Look for the publication soon.
Both Meg and Maura participated as judges for the Virginia Piedmont Regional Science Fair. The fair was held on March 9, 2017 at John Paul Jones arena in Charlottesville Virginia and hosted students from all over central Virginia. This is a great event that allows both middle and high school students to showcase their creativity and scientific skills. More information on the fair and how to get involved can be found here
Our article entitled "Spatially resolved microfluidic stimulation of lymphoid tissue ex vivo" has been printed in The Analyst and has been featured on the cover!
A PDF version of the full text of the publication can be accessed here.
On January 12, 2017, the first Thursday of the legislative session, Colleen Taylor (faculty at Virginia State) and Rebecca Pompano (UVA) participated in Virginia Higher Education Advocacy Day at the Virginia General Assembly in Richmond. The theme of the day was “Hands off Higher Education -- Maintaining Commonwealth Support for Higher Education.”
As faculty, we urged our state delegates and senators to resist the temptation to cut funds further from public education: state funding per student already declined by 46% and 31% for 4-year and community colleges respectively, from FY 2001 to FY 2014.(1) Funding for education directly affects the quality of science training that Virginia students receive to prepare them for future careers and active citizenship.
We especially thank Charlottesville's Delegate David Toscano for taking the time to meet with us. We appreciate his strong ongoing support for higher education.
1. D. Toscano, “Politics and The Great Cost Shift in State-Funded Higher Education.” Virginia General Assembly Update. October 20, 2016.
From left: Brian Turner (Randolph-Macon College), Colleen Taylor (Virginia State), Rebecca Pompano (UVA), Gerry Sherayko (Randolph College, President of VA Conference of American Association of University Professors)
Quote visible on the wall of VA state capitol: "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government." --Thomas Jefferson, 1789.
The Pompano lab is happy to welcome Austin Dunn as a new first year graduate student! Welcome to the lab and we all look forward to working with you!
Congrats to Dr. Ashley Ross, Maura Belanger, and Jacob Woodroof for publishing the first paper of the Pompano Lab. The paper is entitled "Spatially resolved microfluidic stimulation of lymphoid tissue ex vivo" and can be found by clicking the link. This paper is published in The Analyst.
pompanogroup@virginia.edu
Department of Chemistry
University of Virginia
PO BOX 400319
Charlottesville, VA22904
409 McCormick Road
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA22904
(434) 924-7723
Chemistry 107
See Getting Here for a map and directions to the Chemistry building.
Lab Summit, 2024
Lab Summit, 2023
Lab Summit, 2022
Lab summit, Feb 2020
Group Picture, 2016
