Twinbrook Imaging Facility, Laboratory of Immunogenetics, DIR
NIAID
Mentor Name
Javier Manzella-Lapeira, Ph.D.
Joseph Brzostowski, Ph.D.
Nicole Morgan, Ph.D.
Intern Name
Kyle Searle
Intern Institution: University of Texas, Dallas
Project Title: Establishing a Diffusion Gradient in a Micro-Chamber to Study Chemotaxis

Our imaging facility supports the research goals of the LIG by providing various microscopy, imaging, and programmatic solutions. The research focuses on naïve B-cell biology and blood-stage malaria, but also encompasses B-T cell interactions and the activity of NKs in malaria-specific contexts.

Our lab has started to branch into the microfluidics field with three relevant applications in mind that will benefit the scientific questions we are dealing with: cell trapping to observe cell-cell interactions on an xy-plane, assays to study chemotaxis in actively motile cells like dictyostelium or NK cells, and a device to monitor RBC infection life cycle of P falciparum over time on the same cell.

Within the scope of our proposed summer projects, the summer intern could select one of the three experimental design problems highlighted above. If desired and depending on the level of experience with MATLAB programming and laboratory techniques required, the student might be able to programmatically target all the scenarios and pick one of the simulated PDMS chip as a prototype to test and assess.

A BESIP student working on this project should be interested in microfluidics, image acquisition and analysis, microscopy techniques, and immunology.

Brzostowski Lab: Expertise in imaging and microscopy techniques, as well as image processing algorithms and software. Expertise in cell culture and husbandry of mammalian and dicty cell cultures. Provides imaging equipment and analysis workstations with programming and image processing analysis software.

Morgan Lab: Expertise in and facilities for microfabrication, device characterization, and device operation.

BESIP Year