Working to bring our next-generation COVID vaccine (designed for immunosuppressed patients) to the clinic!

The Vaccine Team at HelixNano developed a second-generation COVID19 vaccine (addressing variants of concern in immunosuppressed patients), and is continuing to develop methods to improve the mucosal antibody responses elicited by mRNA vaccines

Facilitated shift in R&D focus from immuno-oncology to development of a SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine

HelixNano leverages synthetic biology and AI to develop novel therapeutic modalities for the world’s most lethal cancers.

I worked in Dr. Xue Han's neuroengineering lab, developing a toolbox of AAV and lentivirus gene therapy vectors that rely upon microRNA regulation to genetically target and classify specific subtypes of neurons in the rodent brain. We call these constructs mAGNETs (microRNA guided neuron tags). Our mAGNETs allow us to probe the molecular mechanisms underlying both normal brain function and diseases (such as autism) and to classify new neural subsets. This strategy could one day be applied to help target human gene therapies. This work resulted in 3 publications and 3 presentations. During the course of my thesis work, I maintained several research collaborations, including with Dr. Wilson Wong's lab (BU BME, synthetic biology), Dr. Hengye Man's lab (BU Biology, mouse models of autism), and Dr. John White's lab (BU BME, brain slice physiology). I have mentored 3 exceptional undergraduates, and many PhD rotation students. I also received recognition for my scientific communication skills, including an NIH F31 Training Fellowship and an invitation to the 2016 MIT "Rising Stars in Biomedical Sciences" conference.

As a Ph.D. rotation student in Dr. Wilson Wong's lab, I cloned and tested a Flp-recombinase synthetic gene switch control for CAR-T cell cancer therapy.

As a Ph.D. rotation student in Dr. Sandor Vajda's lab, I worked on a computational model of the IKKb/ NEMO protein interface to find a correlation between the natural and predicted binding energies. This work resulted in 1 publication.

Over summer 2016 , I interned in NIBR's Developmental and Molecular Pathways (DMP) group, under the mentorship of Dr. Peixin Zhu. As part of a 5-scientist team, I performed RNAseq analysis of specific zebrafish CRISPR genetic knockouts. This work resulted in identification of 4 candidate drug targets.

As an R&D intern, I designed and performed preliminary drug loading and pharmacokinetics experiments to explore a new application of the company's proprietary nanotechnology. I then co-wrote and coordinated a cross-disciplinary effort to submit NSF and NIH SBIR grant proposals.

For three years I worked in Dr. Jeffrey J. Gray's protein structure lab, experimentally validating computational predictions. I performed peptide synthesis, HPLC purification, mass spectrometry, SEM and TEM imaging, and circular dichroism spectrometry to probe predicted interactions between de novo designed peptides and biomineral growth planes.

Working with Dr. Maria Trent, I recruited patients to a research study on the prevalence of certain STDs among Baltimore youths.