Country of origin: USA
Subject: Chemical Engineering
Matriculation year: 2019
I graduated from Purdue University with a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering in 2019. During my undergraduate degree, I volunteered with Engineers Without Borders, which inspired me to apply my biomedical engineering skills to the improvement of health conditions in low- and middle-income countries. This led me to conduct undergraduate research with Dr Jacqueline Linnes on lateral flow tests for the detection of MERS-CoV, and then to start my PhD with Prof Lisa Hall in the Cambridge Analytical Biotechnology group at the University of Cambridge. Prof Lisa Hall is a pioneer in the field of biosensors and has done extensive research in bioelectronic sensors and protein engineering for point-of-care applications.
I am passionate about global health and increasing accessibility to healthcare through academic
research, policy reform, and open access science. While there have been significant developments in point-of-care devices, the cost of diagnostic toolkits remains disproportionately high in low- and middle-income countries. To combat this, our lab works to develop methods for local manufacturing of key diagnostic reagents. Through domestic manufacturing, we can reduce discrepancies in purchasing power, eliminate the high cost of shipping cold chain items long distances, and encourage local enterprise development.
Currently, I am investigating low-cost methods to synthesize nucleotide reagents from bacterial DNA. The nucleotides are a key component of nucleic acid diagnostics, such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The tools I am developing are applied in conjunction with the work my colleagues have conducted on local production of DNA polymerase enzymes.
I also collaborate closely with Dr Jenny Molloy in the Open Bioeconomy Lab, which has nodes in Cambridge, Ghana, and Cameroon. I have greatly enjoyed working closely with colleagues in other parts of the world, and I hope to spend several months working abroad in one of these locations to implement my technology in the near future.