BBCB Student
I graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 2016.
I then worked as a formulation scientist making biodegradable polymeric nanoparticles and microspheres for drug delivery at a pharmaceutical company before joining Prof. Sgourakis’s lab in 2020. Here, I learn to think like a biochemist, biophysicist, and immunologist to explore how TAPBPR interacts with different HLA alleles, including non-classic MHC MR1, and ultimately shapes their peptide repertoires. I also handle the production of pMHC-I tetramer libraries, a “gold standard” to identify antigen-specific T cells. My goal is to expand the repertoire of HLA alleles for rapid pMHC-I tetramer production through TAPBPR-mediated peptide exchange.