(5v) Engineering Approaches in Neuroscience

In science, the most exciting discoveries often occur at the interface between two disciplines. In both my doctoral and postdoctoral work, I have been applying my training in chemical engineering to problems in neurodegeneration. During my graduate studies, I worked with Dane Wittrup at MIT to engineer antibody fragments to counteract disease in cellular models of Huntington's Disease. I also developed stochastic models to describe the kinetics of huntingtin protein nucleation in cells. Since completing my doctorate, I have been working with Stanley Prusiner at UCSF, engineering "synthetic prion" strains, which are comprised of recombinant prion protein refolded into an infectious form in vitro. In the process of doing this work, I have developed an assay for prion detection with femtogram sensitivity. My work in the Prusiner lab is also shedding light on the role of prion protein conformation in disease pathogenesis. In the next phase of my career, I would like to establish a lab at the interface of engineering and neuroscience, applying cell and biomolecular engineering approaches to the most pressing problems in neurodegeneration and neuroscience more broadly.