‘Researcher Highlight’
Researcher Highlight: Soren Smail
Oct. 4, 2023—Soren Smail, 2nd year Interdisciplinary Materials Science graduate student in the Weiss and Laibinis labs In the past few years, the need for rapid and sensitive point-of-care diagnostics has become readily apparent, especially for monitoring and controlling viral transmissions. Optical biosensing is a promising alternative to widely used diagnostic techniques because it can be highly...
Researcher Highlight: Aaron Hunsaker
Oct. 4, 2023—Aaron Hunsaker, a 5th year Ph.D. student in Professor Haglund’s Applied Optical Physics group. I came to Vanderbilt through the Fisk-Vanderbilt Bridge Program, where I received my master’s degree in physics before transitioning to the physics Ph.D. program at Vanderbilt. My master’s research involved fabricating and characterizing a ceramic scintillator of cesium hafnium chloride. That...
Researcher Highlight: Zhiliang Pan
Oct. 2, 2023—Zhiliang Pan, a postdoc in Dr. Deyu Li’s Lab in the Mechanical Engineering department after earning his Ph.D. from the same lab in May 2023. Cooling technologies are important in a wide spectrum of engineering applications from thermal management of micro/optoelectronic devices to maintenance of comfort building environment. It is becoming more crucial as we...
Researcher Highlight: Tian Zhu
Jan. 5, 2023—Tian Zhu, 5th year Chemical and Biomedical Engineering graduate student in the Rafat Lab While radiation therapy (RT) is an efficient treatment for patients with triple negative breast cancer, patients continue to experience recurrence after RT. The extracellular matrix (ECM) in the tumor microenvironment plays a major role in tumor progression and metastasis. ECM structure,...
Researcher Highlight: De-en Jiang
Jan. 5, 2023—Professor of Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering; Professor of Department of Chemistry Energy-efficient chemical transformations and separations are key to solving our society’s many issues toward substantiality. The long-term goal of the Jiang Research Group is to achieve data-driven design and discovery of functional materials and molecules for a sustainable society. By leveraging great...
Researcher Highlight: Marjan Rafat
Jan. 5, 2023—Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering The Rafat Lab combines engineering and cancer biology concepts to examine the mechanisms driving tumor recurrence and metastasis. We study the relationship between tumor cells, normal tissues, and the immune system as a means of understanding the microenvironment to determine how each component contributes to metastasis and relapse...
Researcher Highlight: Alex Stoneman
Jan. 5, 2023—Alex Stoneman, senior Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering & Chemistry undergraduate student in the Lang lab T-cells are key parts of the mammalian immune response, and T-cell receptors (TCRs) help them recognize their foreign targets. Previous lab work has shown that TCRs act as mechanosenors; piconewton-scale forces facilitate their extremely specific interactions with antigens. The lab...
Researcher Highlight: Marsalas Whitaker
Jan. 5, 2023—Marsalas Whitaker, 2nd year Biomedical Engineering graduate student in the Giorgio Lab The level of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) activation is reflected in subpopulations of extracellular vesicles (EVs) originating from cancerous tissue that contain EGFR. Such EVs can be assessed using methods like immunoblots and flow cytometry. One pitfall of current EV purification techniques is reliance...