Public talk at UVA Forward

“A Glimpse into the Chemistry of the Immune System”

It was a special honor to be invited to speak to UVA staff members at their annual professional development event in June 2018. Although the event was meant to inspire the attendees, in the end it was just as inspiring for me! Sharing our lab’s vision, goals, and progress with people from mostly non-science backgrounds, many of whom provide the daily support that make it possible, was a special privilege and a touching reminder of why I am here.

The Pompano Lab at AAI

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!

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

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.

View fullsize

Pompano group at MicroTAS

We are proud that Meg Catterton and Sangjo Shim both presented posters to the international audience MicroTAS 2017 in Savannah, Georgia this year.  Their work was well received.  We enjoyed talking with fellow microfluidics researchers from all over the world, and catching up with former Ismaglov lab members!

Sangjo presents his work.

Meg presents her work.

Beautiful Savannah.

View of the conference center from the bridge over the nearby river.

Savannah is a busy harbor!

We saw it up close during the boat cruise.

MicroTAS 2017!

The Pompano Lab at ACS

After a very productive summer of research the Pompano Lab went to the National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington DC.  We presented two posters, one of which was featured at SciMix!

Thanks to everyone at ACS and here is to another productive year!

Pompano lab at Immunology 2017

In May, The Pompano lab sent a delegation to the American Association of Immunologist's annual conference, Immunology 2017, in Washington DC.  It was great to take in some cutting-edge immunology research!  We presented three posters:

Maura Belanger:  “Validation of murine lymph node slices as a viable and functional experimental platform.”  Co-authors included Ashley, Andrew, and Ben (undergraduate).   **Congratulations to Maura, who won a Student Travel Award for her poster!

Ashley Ross: “Diffusional analysis of cytokines in lymph node tissue on a microfluidic chip.”

Kristen Richey (undergraduate):  "Bright blue fluorescent nanoparticles for live cell imaging by fluorescence microscopy."  This was a collaboration with Meng Zhuang and Cassandra Fraser.

Look for the papers on these topics later this summer!

Pittcon in Chicago

Dr. Pompano and Ashley Ross had a successful trip to Pittcon 2017 in Chicago, IL earlier this month.  Dr. Pompano co-hosted a symposium entitled "Microanalytical Techniques for Immunology" alongside Christopher Love (MIT), in the first immunology-focused session at Pittcon, to our knowlege.  Ashley presented an oral presentation on her newest work, using a microfluidic method to quantify diffusion of cytokines through lymph node tissue.  Look for the publication soon.

MicroTAS in Dublin!

Dr. Pompano and Dr. Ross both attended this year's MicroTAS conference in Dublin, Ireland!  MicroTAS is a  world-wide microfluidics conference where Dr. Ross presented on the local stimulation device.

Dr. Pompano took part in the outreach program.

Overall it was a great conference and we look forward to many more in the coming months!