My background in science is rooted in Developmental Neurobiology. There's something about learning how the brain goes from a couple cells to a complex system, that really gets me excited.
Here are a couple pictures of the model systems that have inspired my thirst for knowledge and passion for developmental biology. All pictures were taken by me at the Embryology Course in Woods Hole at Marine Biological Laboratory.
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| X. laevis : African Clawed Frog with Nanoparticles |
D. rerio : Zebrafish
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| Mouse Embryo's with 100 nm Nanoparticles |
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| X. laevis Embryos ( African Clawed Frog ) |
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| Merge: Dorsal view of X. laevis with Nanoparticles |
Aren't they beautiful?
I did my undergraduate research in the Rothman Lab at UCSB. My primary project was to increase the dispersal of nanoparticles in developmental model organisms. This project was a collaboration between the Rothman and Reich labs at UCSB. I was lucky to get to do much of this research when I spent my summers in Woods Hole at Marine Biological Laboratory as the Course Coordinator for the Embryology Course . With such a vast diversity of animal life available to me in Woods Hole, I learned to manipulate the dispersal of my nanoparticles across many vital barriers, in multiple systems, with cutting-edge techniques. Currently, I'm a Research Assistant in the Maduke Lab at Stanford University. We study the family of Chloride Channels and Transporters. My project is to test novel inhibitors and evaluate the importance of lipid interactions in the drug development process with membrane proteins. Through biochemistry and molecular biology we work to determine the binding sites of a new generation of inhibitors, understand crucial lipid-protein interactions, and evaluate the mechanism of chloride transport.
