INBT Welcomes Summer 2021 Undergraduate Student Researchers

By Gina Wadas / July 1, 2021

Every year, the INBT welcomes undergraduate students in three summer research programs: Nanotechnology for Biology and Bioengineering Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Rosetta Commons Research Experience for Undergraduates program, and NCI Systems Biology and Physical Oncology Summer program. Students spend 10-weeks away from their home university to engage in research projects that may not be available at their home university. They also participate in professional development training and networking while exploring the city of their host university. Meet some of our student researchers, learn about their projects, and follow them on social media.

Physical Sciences Oncology Network Research Program Participant

Jocelyn Hsu

Home University: Ohio State University
INBT Faculty Mentor: Denis Wirtz
INBT Graduate Student Mentor: Ashley Kiemen
Research Project: Developing a new tumor imaging method in 3D at single-cell resolution to study venous invasion in pancreatic cancer.
Social media: Follow Hsu on LinkedIn.

Nanotechnology for Biology and Bioengineering REU Participants

Top row (left to right): Aisha Ademola, Olivia Belda, Michelle Bessiake, and Nicholas Carbone, Middle row (left to right): Luisa Dell, Alyssa Henriquez, Breanna Kilgore, and Kedus Kinfe. Bottom row (left to right): Deanna Riley, Anita Sumali, and Karley White.

Aisha Ademola

Home University: University of South Florida
INBT Faculty Mentor: Peter Searson
INBT Graduate Student Mentor: Zhaobin Guo
Research Project: Developing microvascular inflammation and infection models by combing microfabrication and tissue engineering technology.
Social media: Follow Ademola on LinkedIn.

Olivia Belda

Home University: Brown University
INBT Faculty Mentor: Soojung Claire Hur
INBT Graduate Student Mentor: Harrison Khoo
Research Project: Engineering microfluidic bioreactor that measures the effects of gravitational stimuli on cellular energy homeostasis at the single-cell level.
Social media: Follow Belda on LinkedIn.

Michelle Bessiake

Home University: Arizona State University
INBT Faculty Mentor: Denis Wirtz
INBT Graduate Student Mentor: Adrian Johnston
Research Project: Working to understand the mechanisms of T cell motility.
Social media: Follow Bessiake on LinkedIn.

Nicholas Carbone

Home University: Florida State University
INBT Faculty Mentor: Sean Sun
INBT Graduate Student Mentor: Ikbal Choudhury
Research Project: Growing epithelial cells to measure their trans-epithelial electrical resistance in response to the effect of pressure gradients and the effects of several drugs.
Social media: Follow Carbone on LinkedIn.

Luisa Dell

Home University: University of California, Berkeley
INBT Faculty Mentor: Sharon Gerecht
INBT Graduate Student Mentor: Travis Brady
Research Project: Studying the mechanical properties of endothelial and smooth muscle cells to better understand mechanical characteristics of small vessels.
Social media: Follow Dell on LinkedIn.

Alyssa Henriquez

Home University: Andrews University
INBT Faculty Mentor: Jeff Tza-Huei Wang
INBT Graduate Student Mentor: Chrissy O’Keefe
Research Project: Optimizing a droplet microfluidic platform for efficient loading and characterization of DNA samples to identify epigenetic irregularities.
Social media: Follow Henriquez on LinkedIn.

Breanna Kilgore

Home University: University of Arkansas
INBT Faculty Mentor: Sharon Gerecht
INBT Graduate Student Mentor: Sydney Connor
Research Project: Studying the characteristics of endothelial cell derived extra-cellular vesicles under different levels of shear stress.
Social media: Follow Kilgore on LinkedIn.

Kedus Kinfe

Home University: George Mason University
INBT Faculty Mentor: Kalina Hristova
INBT Graduate Student Mentor: Ece Özdemir
Research Project: Working on methods of isolating the cell membrane primarily through vesiculation to study fibroblast growth factor receptors.
Social media: Follow Kinfe on LinkedIn.

Deanna Riley

Home University: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
INBT Faculty Mentor: Jude Phillip
Postdoctoral Fellow Mentor: Debonil Maity
Research Project: Analyzing how changes in cell morphology, size, forces, and migration can be used to understand mechanisms of aging in the context of health and disease.
Social media: Follow Riley on LinkedIn.

Anita Sumali

Home University: Texas A&M University
INBT Faculty Mentor: Luo Gu
INBT Graduate Student Mentor: Yi Zuo
Research Project: Making alginate hydrogels with different mechanical properties to regulate cell migration.
Social media: Follow Sumali on LinkedIn.

Karley White

Home University: Oklahoma State University
INBT Faculty Mentor: Honggang Cui
INBT Graduate Student Mentor: Jenny Sun
Research Project: Assisting in the creation and application of hydrogel based cancer vaccines by combining biomedical engineering and nanobiotechnology laboratory techniques.
Social media: Follow White on LinkedIn.

Rosetta Commons REU Participants

Top row (left to right): Peter Musenge, Mei Tian, Alex Stoneman, and Rachael White. Bottom row (left to right): Richard Shuai, Kori Lea-Smith, Benjamin Fry, and Damir Temir.

Peter Musenge

Home University: Saint Augustine’s University
Host University: Vanderbilt University
Faculty Mentor: Jens Meiler
Graduate Student Mentor: Alican Gulsevin
Research Project: Probing for the binding site of Veratridine in the cardiac sodium ion channel protein NaV1.5 using computational methods.
Social media: Follow Musenge on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Mei Tian

Home University: Columbia University
Host University: Rutgers University
Faculty Mentor: Sagar Khare
Research Project: Predict enzyme specificity landscapes and design substrate-specific proteases using computational design and machine learning approaches.
Social media: Follow Tian on LinkedIn.

Alex Stoneman

Home University: Vanderbilt University
Host University: Northeastern University
Faculty Mentor: Seth Cooper
INBT Graduate Student Mentor: Josh Miller
Research Project: Working with Foldit’s Dojo mode and its adaptive difficulty adjustment.
Social media: Follow Stoneman on LinkedIn.

Rachel White

Home University: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Host University: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Faculty Mentor: Bruno Correia
INBT Graduate Student Mentor: Casper Goverde and Zander Harteveld
Research Project: Evaluating the performance of a Rosetta-developed deep learning framework at characterizing ideal features of proteins, for design applications.
Social media: Follow White on LinkedIn.

Richard Shuai

Home University: University of California, Berkeley
Host University: Johns Hopkins University
Faculty Mentor: Jeffrey Gray
Graduate Student Mentor: Jeffrey Ruffolo
Research Project: Developing deep learning models to predict antibody structure from sequence.
Social media: Follow Shuai on LinkedIn.

Kori Lea-Smith

Home University: University of Virginia
Host University: University of Denver
Faculty Mentor: Scott Horowitz
Research Project: Developing Foldit puzzles to supplement PyRosetta research projects.
Social media: Follow Lea-Smith on LinkedIn.

Benjamin Fry

Home University: Johns Hopkins University
Host University: The Wistar Institute
Faculty Mentor: Daniel Kulp
Graduate Student Mentor: Yuanhan Wu
Research Project: Applying a novel computational glycoprotein-based vaccine development protocol to the Lassa Virus (LASV).
Social media: Follow Fry on LinkedIn.

Damir Temir

Home University: University of Illinois at Springfield
Host University: Stanford University
Faculty Mentor: Poss Huang
Graduate Student Mentor: Christian Choe
Research Project: Developing an interface to control the distribution of amino acids produced for each residue by a deep neural network that automates the design of sequences onto protein backbones based on the crystal structure data.
Social media: Follow Temir on LinkedIn.

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