Maura Belanger presented at the annual AAI conference held this year in Austin, Texas She presented her work on delivery of beads to lymph node slices. While there she saw some great talks and returned with a lot of new ideas for the lab. We look forward to the new insights and to following some of the scientific advancements coming out of this conference!
Alyssa M. and Rebecca Y. win summer research fellowships
Congratulations to 1st-year student Alyssa Montalbine and 2nd-year student Rebecca Yoo, who each won competitive undergraduate research fellowships to fund their work in the lab this summer! Alyssa received a NanoSTAR fellowship for her work on a scaffold for an artificial lymph node, and Rebecca received a Department of Chemistry fellowship and a College Science Scholars award for her work testing the effects of fluid flow on lymph node tissue. We are excited to have them here with us this summer!
Nanomedicine symposium at Virginia Tech
Meg, Andrew, and Prof. Pompano attended the "2nd inaugural" NanoSymposium on Engineered Health, held this year at VA Tech in Roanoke, VA. Meg and Andrew presented posters and Prof. Pompano gave a talk, and we heard lots of great science from researchers across the state.
Image credit: Dr. Jennifer Munson
Meg takes top honor at 3rd year poster session
We are so proud of Meg Catterton for receiving the award of "Best Poster" at the annual 3rd-year PhD student Poster Session in the Department of Chemistry. Meg presented her work on a device for local stimulation of tissue slices with a movable microfluidic port. Following the poster session, she had the opportunity to present her work to the entire department in a celebratory seminar. Great job Meg! Look for her paper coming soon.
Congratulations also to the 2nd and 3rd place winners of a great poster session!
- 1st Place: Meg Catterton (Pompano lab)
- 2nd Place: Qian Liang (Cafiso lab)
- 3rd Place: Nicole Swope (Columbus lab) & Robert D'Ippolito (Hunt Lab)
Image credits: Dr. Jim Demas
Pompano and Rutkowski awarded collaborative research grant
We are honored that the Pompano lab and Rutkowski lab were awarded a 2018 Collaborative Research Project Award in the amount of $75,000 from the Carter Immunology Center. According to the program announcement,
The goal of this award is to increase the level of collaborative activity among members of the Carter Immunology Center; bring together individuals and laboratories with complementary skills and perspectives; encourage the development of multi-investigator awards, which generally have higher budgets and more comprehensive scope of research activities; and to drive high quality science and encourage its translation into treatments for disease.
We are excited to begin work on a new model of tumor immunity for this project! This award was generously funded by the Carter Foundation.
Immuno-materials syposium @ MRS
Dr. Pompano and Jennifer Ortiz flew to Phoenix to present at MRS 2018 (Materials Research Society national meeting), in a special 2-day symposium on Immuno-modulatory biomaterials. The symposium was organized by Susan Thomas (GA Tech), Evan Scott (Northwestern), and Kara Spiller (Drexel). Such exciting science is being done in this area, led by a wonderful community of researchers -- we are excited to see the innovations to come.
Andrew presents at Pittcon
PhD student Andrew Kinman represented our lab at Pittcon this year in Orlando in late February. He presented his exciting recent work in the Sunday poster session at this national gathering of analytical chemists. Many thanks to those who offered feedback on his project, a microfluidic device for optimization of protein derivatization reactions. We look forward to publishing his work in a few months!
Austin advances to PhD candidacy
Congratulations to Austin for successfully completing his PhD candidacy exam in February! We look forward to seeing all you accomplish.
Celebration after PhD qualifying exams were over!
Photo credit: Prof. Jim Demas
NIH funds the Pompano lab!
Huge news for our research: The NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has awarded our lab more than $1.4 million over five years to fund our efforts to create a new experimental model of the immune system. By combining live lymph node tissue and microfluidic technology, we will be able to look closely that the events that happen locally inside the tissue. This work will inform the development of new anti-inflammatory immunotherapies.
Many thanks to the NIH NIAID for their support, and to Prof. John Lukens for collaborating with us on this project.
Charlottesville High School visits for science-&-art field trip
On November 29, we were lucky to host Charlottesville High School for the first ever CHS-UVA Science-and-Art field trip to the Department of Chemistry! Twenty-nine students from AP Chemistry, Art I, and Honors Studio Art came to visit for tours of the science labs, presentations from graduate students, and a unique art activity designed by Ms. Rachel McLaughlin, art teacher from CHS. The art featured surrealist portraits, where faces were recombined on puzzle pieces, to convey the idea of "organ-on-chip": fabricating organs from molecules and cells and rearranging their pieces in the chemistry lab.
"One thing that I really enjoyed was being able to see the two microscopes in the labs we visited. In each one, we were able to see cells up close and that is something I've never seen. It was a fun and eye-opening experience. Another thing that was really cool was hearing about the organ on a chip because it’s such an amazing idea!" -- A. M., 10th grade
"I'm really interested in both chemistry and art so being able to see how those two intersect was really cool for me. Also being able to see the applications of some of the ideas we talk about in art class being able to be used in medical advancements through chemistry is inspiring." -- S. L., 11th grade
Many thanks to CHS teachers Rachel McLaughlin (art), Rhoda Baker (chemistry), and Sherry Hodges (chemistry) for coming and bringing their students! Also, the tours and talks would not have been possible without Charles Richardson from Gahlmann lab, Mimi Shin from the Venton lab, Nathan Swami from the Swami lab, and Lauren Russell from the Lampe lab.
We are grateful to the Department of Chemistry for their support of this event.
