On July 26, Prof. Pompano had the honor of speaking with UVA students and postdocs who are exploring potential careers as faculty members in the PhD+ STEM Future Faculty series, organized by Dr. Sonali Majumdar. She shared her experiences and advice regarding lab startup packages and managing the finances of a successful laboratory. Running a lab is like running a small business, after all!
Congratulations Dr. Catterton and Dr. Ortiz-Cárdenas
Big congratulations to our two newest PhD graduates, Dr. Megan Catterton and Dr. Jennifer Ortiz-Cádenas.
Meg defended in April 2021 and graduated in the spring ceremony over Zoom!
Jennifer defended in July 2021 and graduates in summer term!
They are both off to exciting new careers this fall. We are so proud of them both and will miss them.
New paper: Fluorination of 3D printed chips
Megan Catterton’s latest paper is out in Langmuir! We report a protocol for fluorosilanization of SLA or DLP 3D printed chips, to give them a Teflon-like surface. Fluorination of 3D printed microfluidic chips was challenging before, but thanks to Megan’s work, it is now straightforward. Her method provides easy access to patterned hydrophobicity on the surface of the chip, and to two-phase droplet microfluidics.
Catterton M, Montalbine AN (#), & Pompano RR. “Selective Fluorination of the Surface of Polymeric Materials After Stereolithography 3D Printing.” Langmuir (2021). Accepted. [Publisher link]
Welcome, award-winning summer researchers
We welcome Meredith Davis, Bond Sittipongpittaya, and Erica Kem to the lab IN PERSON for the summer! It is a delight to have our talented undergraduates in the lab again after a long COVID-driven year.
All three won awards to fund their summer work!
Meredith received a fellowship from the Center for Advanced Biomanufacturing
Bond received a Dept of Chemistry Summer Research Fellowship
Erica received a DoubleHoo award, together with her graduate mentor Alex Ball.
Congrats to all three on this incredible set of accomplishments.
Meredith and Bond are working on computational and experimental models of cytokine transit and capture in the lymph node, and Erica is working on a new probe to measure glucose uptake in vaccinated lymph nodes. We are looking forward to all that you will learn this summer!
New review: Modeling immunity in vitro
Our first collaborative review article, written with Prof. Jennifer Munson and Jenn Hammel of Virginia Tech teamed up with Pompano Lab students Sophie Cook and Maura Belanger, is out in Annual Reviews of Biomedical Engineering!
We cover models of immune organs (lymph node, bone marrow, spleen, lymphatics, etc) and models of peripheral organs that feature immunity.
For each organ, we systematically review models based on
(i) tissue slices
(ii) microfluidics and organs-on-chip
(iii) engineered models, e.g. 3D cultures
The focus is primarily on models of healthy tissue, though with some discussion of models of inflammatory disease as well. Enjoy!
JH Hammel’, SR Cook’, MC Belanger’, JM Munson, and RR Pompano. “Modeling Immunity In Vitro: Slices, Chips, and Engineered Tissues.” Annual Review of Biomedical Eng, 2021, online ahead of print. [pubmed] ‘Equal contributions.
New R21 funding for protein mapping
We are thrilled to announce that that our work on mapping protein distribution in living tissues has been awarded two years of funding by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health. This R21 funding will support a new collaboration between Prof. Kimberly Kelly in BME, Prof. Tajie Harris in Neuroscience, and ourselves, to develop a novel method to see where proteins used to communicate in the immune system are released in live tissues. We are looking forward to this adventurous project!
Alex + Erica win Double Hoo Research Grant
We heartily congratulate undergraduate researcher Erica Kem and graduate student Alex Ball, who were awarded a well-deserved Double Hoo Research Grant! This will fund their research together to measure the response of lymph nodes after vaccination with different adjuvants. They conceived of and drafted their proposal themselves, so we are extra proud of them.
The Double Hoo Research Grant supports between 10-15 pairs of undergraduate and graduate students from across the university each year. The program is intended to build collaborative interactions between the undergraduate and graduate communities throughout the University. These collaborations provide opportunities for more advanced research by undergraduates and valuable mentoring experiences for graduate students.
Sophie wins GSAC Research Grant!
We heartily congratulate Sophie, who was awarded a Spring 2021 research grant from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Council. These are competitive awards and an honor to receive. She wrote a compelling proposal to further her development of a miniaturized recirculating pump with a brand new 3D printer that is safe to use from home during the ongoing pandemic, plus parts for a new type of motor. Excellent work, Sophie!
Hannah enters PhD candidacy!
Congratulations to 2nd year student Hannah Musgrove, who earned a Pass on the PhD candidacy exam this month. She is now officially a PhD candidate. We look forward to seeing her research develop in the area of 3D printed microchips and hybrid tissue-chips. Congrats Hannah!
Prof. Pompano contributes to article on active learning in remote courses
Prof. Pompano co-authored a paper with Prof. and Chair Jill Venton on how active learning helps engage students during remote courses. The article includes many tips and lessons learned from Prof. Pompano’s Analytical courses, which were offered remotely in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The article is part of a series organized by Analytical Bioanalytical Chemistry on teaching during the pandemic. We hope that it is helpful!
