Erin LaMontagne

With support from the NSF GRFP, I aim to generate a unique microfluidics system that provides cerebral organoids with vasculature to further their maturation. I will study the effects of vascular perfusion on organoid growth, cellular complexity, and functionality, and use patient-derived cells in this system to model cerebrovascular pathophysiology of neurological diseases.

Alexander Postlmayr

My research plans with this award are to increase access to physical therapy. To better serve developing nations and underserved communities, this project involves building a mobile application that utilizes machine learning for personalized virtual physical therapy sessions to improve health outcomes.

Shivani Shukla

I am a 2nd year in Ester Kwon's lab in Bioengineering. I am working on creating diagnostic nanosensors for traumatic brain injury. I hope to use these nanosensors to study the nature of injury in the brain and its influence on brain function and behavior.

Abigail Teitgen

I am interested in developing and utilizing novel multiscale computational modeling techniques to study the biomechanics of heart failure. Specifically, I am researching a novel candidate therapeutic for heart failure, 2-deoxy-ATP (dATP). I intend to assess the mechanisms and effects of dATP on cardiac function at the molecular, cellular, tissue, and organ levels. Many of these mechanisms are difficult to fully understand through experimental methods, so combining experimental data and computational techniques provides a powerful way to better understand the effects of dATP at multiple scales.

Tiffany Zhou

Stochastic processes such as random bursts of transcription and translation create substantial intercellular variability in gene circuit behavior, presenting a major roadblock for the use of synthetic gene circuits in therapeutics, biofuels, and other real-world applications. An ideal solution for reducing variability would involve strong, instantaneous synchronization of cell responses over a large population. My research objective is to engineer a system for long-range synchronization that can be incorporated into a wide array of genetic circuits to expand their functionality across macroscopic length scales. I will be integrating a gas-phase redox signaling system with a synchronized lysis circuit in order to gain new insights into long-distance cell communication mechanisms, improve computational models for predicting cellular behavior, and enable synthetic gene circuits to be scaled up to address real-world challenges.

Shalni Kumar

My research aims to make use of heterogeneity between single bacterial cells to create purposefully unpredictable and adaptable population-level behaviors. The larger goal of this work will be to create a synthetic bacterial population capable of preventing the acquisition of tumor resistance to delivered therapies, among other applications.

Yazmin Hernandez

Skin cancer is the most prevalent form of cancer in the US and its incidence is still on the rise despite increased availability and use of sunscreen. For my NSF award, I proposed research to package UV filters in bicompartmental enzymatic nanoparticles to reduce the toxicity of sunscreen formulations and provide broad spectrum UV protection.

Joanna (Tiangchang) Zhang

My research plan for this award is to use synthetic biology tools to engineer interesting bacterial population dynamics, as well as study these dynamics within 3D in vitro models that mimic environments of the human body. By gaining a better understanding of how these dynamics are affected by the body, we can more effectively design bacterial systems for applications such as cancer therapy.

Marianne Madias

My research project through the NSF GRFP will focus on reprogramming the blood-brain barrier (BBB) to increase transport. I will study whether this can lead to altered transport of engineered materials from the blood into the brain parenchyma to improve medicines for the central nervous system.

Eric Kofman

My plans are to use the NSF award to investigate translational regulation and dynamics in neurodegenerative conditions including Alzheimer's Disease and ALS.

Paige Steppe

I will be utilizing this NSF award within Dr. Jeff Hasty's Laboratory to construct synthetic gene regulatory networks leveraging both computational and experimental methods. These regulatory networks can be coupled with bacterial cell hosts to synchronize behavior and serve as novel microbial therapeutics.

Madison Kane

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States, with pancreatic cancer being the fourth largest contributor to cancer-related deaths. The most common type of pancreatic cancer is pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and a hallmark of PDAC is hypovascularity, or a limited supply of functional blood vessels. Many factors contribute to the scarcity of blood vessels in this disease, however little is known about the role pancreatic stellate cells, which contribute to the formation of fibrotic tissue, play. I proposed to create a microfluidic platform to culture 3D pancreatic cancer tissue and elucidate the role that pancreatic stellate cells play in hypovascularity. This research will provide a better understanding of the progression of vessel collapse and give insight on how to develop therapeutics to enhance vascularity and increase efficacy of drug delivery.

Katherine (Katie) O'Connor

NSF GRFP has given me the flexibility to pursue more high-risk high-reward avenues of synthetic biology. Engineered genetic circuits allow for new pathways towards diagnostics and treatments from a systems perspective, and can be used to exploit natural phenomena. I hope to pursue and utilize this developing field of research in new environments to better understand biological systems in our own physiology and beyond.

Allison Chen, BS '21

At Cornell University’s PhD program in Bioengineering, I plan to adapt my area of focus to identify medical needs as a scientist to encourage the implementation of biomimetic materials and eco-polymers for commercially viable drug delivery products. My greatest hope is to inspire new perspectives with novel technological platforms and contribute to a community of technological innovation geared towards improving the current systems as a leader in unique materials innovation to benefit and improve human lives.

Hope Leng, BS '21

With the NSF GRFP award at Stanford University’s PhD Bioengineering program, I aim to advance the technologies and tools we use to understand complex physiological systems like the human brain. Through organoids, organs-on-chips, and 3D bioprinting, I hope to reduce reliance on animal models and improve our ability to find solutions to interesting and unanswered research questions about neural disorders and human health.

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Aoife O’Farrell, BS'21

At the Bioengineering PhD program at University of Pennsylvania, I plan to use the NSF GRFP to fund research in the field of immunoengineering - studying how the immune system responds to disease and engineering novel immunotherapies to improve a patient's response to treatment. Specifically, I aim to improve our understanding of the T cell response to cancer to benefit patients with low tumor immunogenicity.

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