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.

1st-yr Jon Zatorski wins NSF GRFP

We are thrilled and honored that first-year PhD student Jon Zatorski was awarded an Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation this week. This is a major accomplishment that reflects Jon’s hard work throughout his college career, in our lab over the summer before grad school officially began, and in the fall semester to draft a strong proposal and personal statement while also juggling coursework and teaching commitments. We are very excited to see what he achieves over the next few years!

Hutcheson undergraduate award

We are very proud of Eirini Stylianopoulos for being awarded a Hutcheson Undergraduate Research Fellowship for summer 2019! This competitive award is generously funded by a charitable gift from Randy and Rossie Hutcheson, for top undergraduates working in Carter Immunology Center labs on immunology projects. We look forward to Eirini’s work on antibody-based reagents to sense cytokines!

Harrison & DoubleHoo research awards

We are very proud of our stellar undergraduate researchers, who continue to win competitive awards for their work:

• Alyssa Montalbine was awarded a Harrison Grant to fund her research on a synthetic lymph node scaffold this summer

• Tim Freeman and Meg Catterton were awarded a DoubleHoo award to fund their collaborative work to measure the diffusion of proteins through inflammed tissues

  Congratulations!

Prof. Pompano named a 2019 CMBE Rising Star

Rebecca was one of six new Rising Stars recognized with a plenary talk at the 2019 CMBE conference. What an honor to be among this prestigious group of assistant professors! The conference convened in San Diego, California at the start of the new year, and was a fantastic meeting filled with creative new approaches to engineering molecules, cells, and tissues to mimic the complex in vivo environment.

Prof. Pompano named Lab on a Chip Emerging Investigator

Professor Pompano was named an Emerging Investigator by Lab on a Chip, following publication of our article on a movable port for stimulation of slices of live tissue.  What an honor!  You can read the full interview here.

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!

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. 

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. 

Prof. Pompano speaks at Hartwell Annual Meeting

Dr. Pompano presented our lab's latest work at the annual meeting of The Hartwell Foundation, held at Duke University.  It was great to meet with approximately forty researchers all conducting creative, cutting-edge research to help the children of the United States.  Many thanks to The Hartwell Foundation for such a stimulating meeting.