Congratulations, Dr. Maura Belanger

We are very proud of Dr. Maura Belanger for successfully defending her PhD in April, 2020, and graduating today in UVA Chemistry’s virtual graduation ceremony!

Maura was one of the first two graduate students to join the laboratory. She helped establish much of the foundational science that now informs our efforts to study immunity ex vivo. Along the way, she was awarded a fellowship on the Immunology Training Grant, contributed to 2 co-author papers, 2 first-author papers, and is currently leading the writing of a comprehensive review for submission this summer. Congratulations Maura for all of your achievements!

Paper: Blue particles to label cells

Congratulations to Maura Belanger and Meng Zhuang from the Fraser lab for the publication of their work in Biomaterials Science. This project was initiated by talented undergraduate Kristen Richey several years ago.

We show that boron based, blue-fluorescent nanoparticles make good labels for endocytic immune cells in fluorescence imaging or flow cytometry. 

Take advantage of that underutilized blue channel on your microscope.

Advance article accessible here: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2020/BM/C9BM01572H

Pompano receives UVA Research Excellence Award

We are very honored that Dr. Pompano was recognized with an inaugural Research Excellence Award from the University of Virginia Vice President for Research Office!

Read more in the UVA Today article from Jan. 31, 2020.

The Research Excellence Award recognizes University of Virginia faculty members who have generated scholarship of high quality and are emerging in their fields as leaders and acknowledged as such by their peers. A candidate must not be more than 10 years beyond receipt of the Ph.D. degree, by December 31st of the year in which they are nominated.

Welcome Pargat, Emma, and Erica!

Our lab is growing. Recently we welcomed Dr. Pargat Singh to the group, from CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology in India, to work on methods to detect cytokines in tissue. His expertise in protein modification and microfluidics is a wonderful addition.

We also welcomed two new undergraduates, Erica Kem and Emma Parker. They will contribute to our work with lymph node slices and to protein modification projects, respectively. We are delighted to have their energy and enthusiasm in the lab.

CMBE 2020 in Puerto Rico

Dr. Pompano traveled to beautiful Puerto Rico to present our lab’s work on micropatterned 3D cultures at CMBE 2020. This conference featured a fascinating mix of chemical and molecular analysis and engineering, and new and old friends.

Pompano lab in Switzerland

We had a great time presenting at MicroTAS 2019, in Basel, Switzerland, where Meg and Andrew each presented a poster on their research. Prof. Pompano served on the Technical Program Committee and also the Poster Judging committee, and so got to see a wide array of excellent work.

Pictures coming soon.

Meg presents at SciX

In October 2019, PhD student Megan Catterton represented the lab at SciX 2019 in the ANACHEM Award award session, a session in honor of Prof. Robert Kennedy receiving the ANACHEM award. Held in Palm Springs, CA, this special symposium included leaders in the field of microfluidics for bioanalysis. Meg made us proud!

NIH U01 for Lymph Node Chip

This week we learned that we have officially been awarded a $3.3 million dollar grant to generate the world’s first spatially organized micro-physiological model of a human lymph node. This U01 award from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) at the National Institutes of Heath provides 5 years of funding for this project.

We are delighted to work with a stellar team of researchers, including:

• Jennifer Munson, PhD at Virginia Tech

• John Luckey, MD, UVA Pathology

• Tom Braciale, MD PhD, UVA Pathology

As new members of the NIH-sponsored Organ-on-chip Consortium, we are looking forward to bringing a lymph node to the burgeoning human-on-chip system!

Summer outing to Walnut Creek

We took our second annual summer lab outing on Friday July 19, with a trip to beautiful Walnut Creek in Albemarle County, VA. Hiking, swimming, canoeing, and sand castles kept us happy despite the near 100 degree heat.

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Hiding in the shade.

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Keeping cool in the water.

Not pictured but in attendance: Sangjo Shim and his family!

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.