Gene Therapy Experience

This experience took place during my Fall 2023 co-op rotation at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in a research lab for Cystic Fibrosis. This experience allowed me to work on a project developing a novel gene therapy vector designed for use in CF patients. During this project, I developed experiments to test each iteration of the vector with a reporter gene to gauge its effectiveness. This project involved intensive characterization of our therapeutic particles and gave me the opportunity to work with UC Med’s Center for Advanced Structural Biology to image the particles on their electron microscope. Cystic Fibrosis was a disease that I specifically wanted to work with, as my brother-in-law has CF. Hearing him talk about his experience growing up with CF and his responses to the new modulator drugs made me interested in working for a lab that develops CF therapies for children who don’t respond to the modulator drugs and work to give them the same degree of freedom and relief that my brother-in-law felt when he got on CF modulators.