NOTICE: This event will be held via Zoom. The link will be posted below.
https://umich.zoom.us/j/94405051853

Seminar Abstract:

My research program, the Precision Immune Microenvironment (PIM) Lab, will create a minimally invasive toolset for monitoring immune responses within tissues. In my research seminar I will begin by briefly discussing the work I performed with Dr. Themis Kyriakides as a PhD student at Yale - strategies to manipulate the early stages of the foreign body response (FBR) to implanted materials. I will next discuss my work as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan with Dr. Lonnie Shea. I focus on harnessing the chronic phase of the FBR, as a tool to monitor the immune system. I use biomaterial-based immunological niches to provide insights into the phenotype of innate immune cells that control disease activity. Cells harvested from these niches exhibit differential gene expression sufficient to monitor disease dynamics and to gauge the effectiveness of treatment. I will then discuss work developing sensors for secreted proteins to non-invasively measure protein expression in vivo via luminescence and FRET. I will conclude my talk with a brief discussion of my planned research
program that aims to leverage my materials and immune engineering experience to harness bio-responsive materials as translatable tools for real-time monitoring of tissue immunity.