Congratulations to Tiffany and Parris for the Harrison Fellowship!

This award will fund Tiffany's work this summer to look at the impact of oxygen availability and culture conditions on long-term human tonsil tissue culture.  It's an area that we are all excited to move into, and also synergizes well with the experiments that Sahana and Erin are planning in mouse tissue.  I am looking forward to seeing what we learn from these experiments! Congratulations Tiffany!

Posted on March 1, 2023 and filed under Grants & Awards, Lab Updates, People.

Congratulations to Morgan and Katerina for the Double Hoo Award!

This award will fund their work together this summer to look at how the tumor draining lymph nodes are remodeled before and after metastasis in a breast cancer model.  This exciting project will lay a foundation for understanding the factors that drive tumor cell invasion into the lymph nodes during metastasis, and enable improved models of metastasis and therapies in the future. Congratulations Morgan and Katerina!

Posted on March 1, 2023 and filed under Grants & Awards, Lab Updates, People.

First paper of 2023! Easy fab bubble traps

Congrats to Hannah Musgrove, Amirus (Ovi) Saleheen, and Jon Zatorski on their latest paper, now published in Micromachines as part of the Womens Special Issue! To address the perennial problem of bubbles arising in the tubing of microfluidic cultures and organs-on-chip, they adapted a previously described, passive bubble trap design for fabrication by 3Dprinting or by high-throughput machining. These two fabrication methods enable reproducible, low-cost fabrication at moderate or large throughput, respectively. We share the design files in the linked Dataverse site, so feel free to try them out!

Top panel: cutaway diagram of the bubble trap, with bubbles trapped near the top of a cylindrical chamber by bouyancy, as fluid continues out the bottom of the chamber.  Bottom panel shows photos of 3D printed and machined traps.
Posted on February 12, 2023 and filed under Papers.

New paper: 3D printed microfluidic inlets

Congratulations to Hannah Musgrove on her second publication, which is part of the Chips & Tips blog associated with Lab on a Chip. She shares her elegant design for a robust, printable microfluidic port in the post, with detailed instructions.  If you are or ever will be 3D printing plastic microfluidic chips, you've faced the chip-to-world problem. Hannah's design works well for SLA and DLP printing, including for small microfluidic tubing. This posting went through editorial review and revision, and we are delighted to share it.

Musgrove HB and Pompano RR. Threadless chip-to-world connections on resin 3D printed microscale devices.” In Chips & Tips (2022), a curated open access blog associated with Lab on a Chip.

Posted on December 8, 2022 .

Pompano Lab at MicroTAS 2022

The Pompano Lab had a great time at MicroTAS 2022, held in China, October 23-27, 2022. We attended virtually and were very proud of Sophie Cook's midnight oral presentation, and Hannah Musgrove's poster on Monday. Prof. Pompano was the Co-Chair of the Weekend Workshop series, a series of eight tutorial workshops with approximately 24 speakers from around the world. These were a pleasure to see go off smoothly, and the participants learned so much from our experts.

Posted on October 27, 2022 and filed under Conferences, Presentations.

Prof. Pompano speaks at UVA Child's Health Research Center

It was a pleasure to discuss our research with physicians and researchers working on children's health, including pediatric oncology, respiratory diseases including COVID, and others. Looking forward to setting up new collaborations to make a difference for these patients!

Posted on October 21, 2022 and filed under Presentations.

Moore Inventor Fellowship

Congratulations to Prof. Pompano and the whole lab on receiving the 2022 Moore Inventor Fellowship! As one of five annual recipients, she was awarded for the development of a microscope to observe the interactions between cells in order to develop pharmaceuticals and therapies to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases. Congratulations!!

http://as.virginia.edu/rebecca-pompano-wins-moore-inventor-fellowship

https://www.nbc29.com/2022/10/04/uva-professor-wins-moore-inventor-fellowship/

https://dailyprogress.com/uva-moore-inventor-fellow/collection_a5644c9e-4653-11ed-8ab2-fb791587bda7.html

Posted on October 11, 2022 and filed under Grants & Awards.

Chemistry Alumni Open House events

The Pompano lab was delighted to meet alumni from the Department of Chemistry, ranging from recent grads to folks who graduated 50 years ago. PhD student Sophie Cook presented a poster at the research fair, and Hannah Musgrove ran a booth about the Chemistry Science Communications booth. Later, Sophie led tours of our lab for interested alumni! Thanks all for visiting, and please let us know if you would like more information about our research.

Posted on October 7, 2022 and filed under Presentations, Outreach, Lab Updates.