Matt Keuss is one of the three students who are currently part of the NBMed graduate program. We asked Matt to write a short biosketch for the INBT website and give us some insight into the research projects he’s involved in.

Bio: Matt Keuss

Currently, I am a first year graduate student in the department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and am a member of the NBMed program of the INBT.

I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and attended the University of Missouri-Columbia where I studied chemical engineering. Although I enjoyed chemical engineering, I was also interested in biology so I began working at the Columbia Environmental Research Center near my school. There I worked with biochemists and biologists to test the effects of pesticides on fish endocrinology and reproduction. In addition, I also researched at the University of Missouri with a chemistry professor where I investigated the role of reactive oxygen species on protein regulation.

When I began to look for graduate programs, I still desired to do biology relevant research, but wanted to use the engineering techniques I had learned as a foundation. The Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at Johns Hopkins University interested me because their interdisciplinary research met this criterion.

Once at JHU, I found a primary advisor, Dr. Denis Wirtz, from my home department, and now I am currently doing rotations to find a co-advisor. My first rotation was with Dr. Geraldine Seydoux in the molecular biology and genetics department at JHMI. There I used fluorescent microscopy to quantify the change in concentration of GFP fusion proteins during polarity establishment in C. elegans embryos.

Currently I am in my second rotation with Dr. Ted Dawson from the neuroscience department at JHMI. My rotation project involves working with a postdoc to develop a method to transport siRNA and antisense oligonucleotides through the blood brain barrier in mice, to knockdown genes of interest. Once developed, this method will be a vital tool to help elucidate the mechanisms of cell death resultant from neurodegenerative diseases.

I enjoy the NBMed program because it allows my advisor and me to draw from several fields of research to craft a unique thesis project.