Emmune
Principal Scientist
- Formulated nucleic acid lipid nanoparticles on a microfluidic platform at the 10 microgram to 10 milligram scale, covering buffer exchange by PD-10, Amicon ultrafiltration, and dialysis, plus small-scale sterile filtration.
- Ran a full factorial design of experiments crossing microfluidic flow rate against lipid N/P ratio, with particle size, polydispersity index, encapsulation efficiency, and transfection as readouts.
- Correlated lipid nanoparticle size, polydispersity index, and encapsulation efficiency with potency, and assessed how formulation and buffer changes shifted performance.
- Screened buffer and excipient stability under freeze-thaw and storage time, and quantified encapsulation by RiboGreen.
- Co-designed in vivo studies of a genetic medicine, setting dose groups, dosing intervals, assay timepoints, and readouts, with dosing executed by a contract research organization.
- Built cell-based assays in primary and immortalized cells, including viability readouts, to support hepatic and extrahepatic delivery.
- Worked with a process engineer to translate bench formulation findings toward scale-up.
- Wrote protocols with defined acceptance criteria and characterized assay performance against them.
Emmune
Senior Scientist
- Built and ran the lipid nanoparticle formulation and characterization workflow for the program, including dynamic light scattering for size and polydispersity index and mRNA integrity assessment by TBE-urea gel, agarose gel, and Bioanalyzer.
- Co-directed a junior scientist from June 2024 to June 2025, setting priorities, assigning work, and contributing to performance review.
- Co-mentored a process engineer on formulation methods and data interpretation.
Intellia Therapeutics
Senior Scientist, Delivery Biology
- Characterized lipid nanoparticle delivery into primary and immortalized cells across multiple donors, with editing read out by amplicon sequencing.
- Measured time-course uptake kinetics and colocalization with endosomal and lysosomal markers to separate particle uptake from productive delivery.
- Assessed endosomal escape readouts in primary and immortalized cells.
- Quantified receptor density by flow cytometry and tested ligand-targeted lipid nanoparticles on primary and immortalized cells spanning a range of receptor levels.
- Qualified droplet digital PCR biodistribution assays on preclinical blood and tissue against predefined sensitivity, specificity, and signal to noise criteria, reaching a 10 to 100 fold better readout than next generation sequencing.
- Ran high-content imaging on a Thermo Fisher CX7 high-throughput imaging system.
- Prepared single-cell RNA sequencing samples, with analysis alongside the bioinformatics team.
- Presented data to leadership teams.
Intellia Therapeutics
Scientist, Vector Biology and Target Discovery
- Implemented droplet digital PCR for high-throughput lipid nanoparticle biodistribution and tropism, improving assay signal to noise 100-fold and establishing the readout that salvaged the program. Co-owned this workstream with a colleague.
- Built lentiviral packaging and producer cell lines in both adherent and suspension formats, then screened and banked virus-producing and transduced lines.
- Produced and characterized lentiviral vectors by ultracentrifugation, p24 quantification, and physical and functional titer, measured vector copy number by droplet digital PCR, and ran next generation sequencing for integration site analysis.
- Cloned pooled multi-ICD CAR-T libraries in E. coli using 15+ ICD candidate genes, then screened them in immune cells.
- Ran activation, proliferation, and exhaustion readouts and Incucyte tumor co-culture killing assays, and contributed to target selection, lead optimization, and candidate nomination decisions.
- Served as the go-to designer and reviewer for adeno-associated virus and lentiviral plasmid design and quality control, and built in-house cloning workflows with standardized vector backbones that shortened turnaround.
- Led contract research and manufacturing collaborations for plasmids, primers, and synthetic gene blocks from nanogram to milligram scale with well-known international CDMOs and CROs.
- Ran CRISPR screens with single guide RNA library cloning and lentiviral short hairpin RNA delivery in immune cells, with nucleofection in immortalized and primary cells.
- Mentored a junior scientist for roughly one year, overseeing and assisting their research.
UT Health San Antonio
Postdoctoral Fellow, Molecular Medicine
- Modeled embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma in zebrafish (Danio rerio), expressing reporter genes and patient-specific TP53 mutations to test how those mutations shaped tumor behavior.
- Ran extensive tumor transplantation studies with confocal and live-cell time-lapse imaging on an Olympus FLUOVIEW FV3000, plus immunohistochemistry on FFPE and OCT tumor sections with automated slide imaging.
- Quantified muscle differentiation genes in rhabdomyosarcoma cells and ran differentiation and Incucyte proliferation assays.
- Mined DepMap and TCGA extensively to prioritize candidate dependencies, and built barcoded plasmid and cell line databases in FileMaker Pro.
- Mentored one clinical fellow, one graduate student, and three summer students.
University of Saskatchewan
Doctoral Researcher, Biology
- Determined how protein catabolism couples to lifespan and reproduction in Caenorhabditis elegans, using cloning-based functional assays and confocal microscopy throughout.
- Assessed mitochondrial dysfunction with MitoTracker dyes in C. elegans and, through a collaboration, in plants.
- Analyzed survival and categorical data by log-rank, Mann-Whitney U, Fisher exact, and chi-square tests.
- Mentored several undergraduate researchers.