Anna Romanov (BATHE & IRVINE LABS)

Engineering DNA Origami Nanoparticles as a Modular Vaccine Platform to Investigate Humoral Immunity

Wireframe DNA origami can be leveraged as a structural scaffold to organize proteins and other bioactive molecules at the nanoscale. The highly programmable nature of nucleic acids provides precise control over the geometry and stoichiometry of protein organization, which is difficult to achieve using classical protein nanotechnology. This level of control is particularly valuable for investigating nanoscale mechanisms of immune cell activation. Here we demonstrate the utility of DNA origami nanoparticles displaying engineered immunogens as a vaccine platform in vivo, which we propose to use to elucidate nanoscale design rules for subunit vaccines.

John Day (BOYER LAB)

MultiExM: Expansion Microscopy Adapted to the Well Plate

Expansion microscopy (ExM) is a super-resolution microscopy technique that has led to a myriad of discoveries in biology. By increasing the size of the sample itself through chemical means, ExM can reveal nanoscale details of cellular architecture without the need for a specialized microscope, making ExM an accessible super-resolution microscopy technique. In this work, we developed a device that enables the user to perform ExM in a 96-well plate. This device will enable super-resolution microscopy in the context of drug/toxicology screens.