New paper: Magnetic impeller pump for organs-on-chip

Congratulations to Sophie Cook and co-author Hannah Musgrove for their paper now available online before print in Lab on a Chip! Sophie invented a creative impeller pump design for in-line recirculaton of media through on-chip cultures and organs-on-chip. The pump does not require any tubing or external pumps, just a magnetic stirring platform that easily fits in the incubator without heating it up. This was an exciting collaboration with Prof. Amy Throckmorton of Drexel University, who conducted advanced fluid dynamic simulations to better understand and predict the fluid flow around the pump and how it controlled flow through the channels.

This pump lays the groundwork for recirculating flow control in long-term cultures and multi-tissue cultures. Sophie and Hannah showed that it was mechanically compatible with recirculating of lymphocytes, and when 3D printed in the right resin, could be used to circulate model lymphocytes overnight.

Prof. Pompano gives invited talk at Drexel IMES

It was an honor for Dr. Pompano to speak in the 3rd Annual Immune Modulation & Engineering Symposium, Dec 9-10, 2021 . All of the talks and discussions during panels were insightful and thought-provoking. With over 375 participants, many of whom were students from around the world, this was a special opportunity for the immune-engineering community to come together virtually.

This workshop was generously subsidized by the National Institutes of Health.

Prof. Pompano co-organizes New Faces in Chemistry Workshop

In July and August, 2021, the UVA Department of Chemistry faculty mobilized to put together a brand new, virtual workshop for future faculty in the chemical sciences, titled New Faces in Chemistry: A Future Faculty Workshop.  Co-organized by Prof. Rebecca Pompano and Prof. Marcos Pires, the 5-day workshop sought to level the playing field for future faculty applicants from diverse backgrounds.  Recognizing that the application process is opaque to many trainees, and that this can reduce the diversity of the application pool for highly competitive faculty positions, we established this workshop to share critical information on making a competitive faculty job application.  The workshop was open to all, and was targeted it especially to those from underrepresented backgrounds (women, URM, first-gen, LGBTQ, and self-identified diversity).  Approximately 50 participants attended the workshop each day from across the USA and around the world. 

Faculty from across the entire Chemistry department pitched in to share their advice, expertise, and tips, on topics including: how to choose what positions to apply to; preparation of a strong cover letter, CV, research statement, diversity statement, and teaching statement; planning to fund your lab via grant writing; and preparation for strong interview and negotiation of startup. 

We were fortunate to draw on the depth of resources previously created by the UVA PhD Plus program, provided by Sonali Mujamdar, PhD. 

Next, in Phase II of the workshop that commenced in August, Chemistry faculty are volunteering their time to provide 1-on-1 feedback for participants on elements of their faculty job application.  Approximately half of the workshop participants signed up for Phase II of the workshop.  Feedback from this program has been very positive. 

New Faces in Chemistry : A Future Faculty Workshop

July 12 – 16, 2021

Virtually at the Univ of Virginia

We hope to see many of our participants go on to exciting faculty careers across the country, and perhaps even here at UVA one day!

Parris Anbaei wins 3rd place in Chemistry Rising 5th year Poster session

Big congratulations to Parris for her wonderful presentation! Good job also to Sophie Cook and Jon Zatorski for their excellent presentations in the 4th year session!

Sophie Cook named a Presidential Fellowship for Collaborative Neuroscience

This award will enable exciting work to study brain immunity in collaboration with Prof. Tajie Harris in the School of Medicine, as well as unique career development opportunities!

Prof. Pompano speaks at PhD+ STEM Future Faculty

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.