BioAnalytic Side People
Principle Investigator
Current Lab Members:
Laura Casto earned her Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and Mathematics from West Virginia Wesleyan College in 2013. During her undergraduate career, she completed two consecutive Summer Undergraduate Research Experiences at West Virginia University with Dr. Lisa Holland working on aptamer-based assays and characterizing a thermally responsive smart gel as a separation medium for microchip electrophoresis. In August 2015 she joined the research group of Dr. Christopher Baker in the Chemistry Department at the University of Tennessee where she completed her PhD in 2019. In the Baker group, her research was motivated by the development of neuropeptide assays with high temporal and spatial resolution using capillary and microchip electrophoresis. This work has resulted in peer-reviewed publications, numerous presentations at national, regional, and local conferences, several poster awards including the Margaret "Tina" Riedinger Societal Impact Award at the 2nd Annual Women in STEM Research Symposium at UTK and Best Poster at the 2018 Department of Chemistry Board of Visitors Meeting. She was also the recipient of the Eastman Fellowship in Analytical Chemistry for the Summer of 2018. Throughout her time in the UTK Chemistry Department, she was consistently involved with the Association of Chemistry Graduate Students, serving as the President, Vice President, and Caree r Development Chair, as well as serving on the department recruitment and seminar committees as the graduate student representative. She is currently working with Prof. Richard Mathies and Dr. Anna Butterworth as a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Space Sciences Lab (UC Berkeley).