Shonit Sharma (RIBBECK, KARP, & LEE LABS )

A Stonefish-inspired Device for Oral Delivery of Biologics

Drug delivery by oral administration is the most common and patient-preferred route. Ingestible devices enable oral delivery of drugs previously only administered as injections, but the complexity of these devices may preclude them from clinical translation. Inspired by the efficient toxin delivery mechanism of the stonefish, we designed a simple, ingestible device enabling drug delivery with both high bioavailability and high reliability. We achieved platform drug delivery with the device in live pigs, paving the way for clinical translation.

Qianhe Zhang (IRVINE & WANG LABS)

High-Throughput Genetic Perturbation Screens with In Situ RNA Sequencing

Spatial transcriptomic technologies provide new insights into gene expression landscape of cells and tissues, but with molecular profiling along, it is often challenging to dissect how each individual gene functions in biological processes in space. To better understand how genes contribute to different spatial phenotypic effects in cells and tissues, we integrate CRISPR genetic screening with the 3D single-cell transcriptome mapping method STARmap, enabling us to investigate the underlying molecular mechanisms of both cell-intrinsic and -extrinsic features.