Pompano receives UVA Research Excellence Award

We are very honored that Dr. Pompano was recognized with an inaugural Research Excellence Award from the University of Virginia Vice President for Research Office!

Read more in the UVA Today article from Jan. 31, 2020.

The Research Excellence Award recognizes University of Virginia faculty members who have generated scholarship of high quality and are emerging in their fields as leaders and acknowledged as such by their peers. A candidate must not be more than 10 years beyond receipt of the Ph.D. degree, by December 31st of the year in which they are nominated.

Welcome Pargat, Emma, and Erica!

Our lab is growing. Recently we welcomed Dr. Pargat Singh to the group, from CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology in India, to work on methods to detect cytokines in tissue. His expertise in protein modification and microfluidics is a wonderful addition.

We also welcomed two new undergraduates, Erica Kem and Emma Parker. They will contribute to our work with lymph node slices and to protein modification projects, respectively. We are delighted to have their energy and enthusiasm in the lab.

CMBE 2020 in Puerto Rico

Dr. Pompano traveled to beautiful Puerto Rico to present our lab’s work on micropatterned 3D cultures at CMBE 2020. This conference featured a fascinating mix of chemical and molecular analysis and engineering, and new and old friends.

Meg presents at SciX

In October 2019, PhD student Megan Catterton represented the lab at SciX 2019 in the ANACHEM Award award session, a session in honor of Prof. Robert Kennedy receiving the ANACHEM award. Held in Palm Springs, CA, this special symposium included leaders in the field of microfluidics for bioanalysis. Meg made us proud!

Summer outing to Walnut Creek

We took our second annual summer lab outing on Friday July 19, with a trip to beautiful Walnut Creek in Albemarle County, VA. Hiking, swimming, canoeing, and sand castles kept us happy despite the near 100 degree heat.

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Hiding in the shade.

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Keeping cool in the water.

Not pictured but in attendance: Sangjo Shim and his family!

Protein conjugation chip funded by NIH

Today the Pompano lab is celebrating a notice of funding for our focused R03 proposal. In collaboration with the Landers lab, we are building a microchip to help researchers efficiently add fluorophores to proteins without trial and error.

Many thanks to the National Institutes of Health, specifically the NIBIB (National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering), for funding this exciting work.

Kudos to PhD student Andrew Kinman for leading this project and helping craft a successful grant proposal.

Harrison & DoubleHoo research awards

We are very proud of our stellar undergraduate researchers, who continue to win competitive awards for their work:

• Alyssa Montalbine was awarded a Harrison Grant to fund her research on a synthetic lymph node scaffold this summer

• Tim Freeman and Meg Catterton were awarded a DoubleHoo award to fund their collaborative work to measure the diffusion of proteins through inflammed tissues

  Congratulations!

Welcome Jon, Sophie, and Aditya!

The Pompano lab is growing. We welcome 3 new Chemistry PhD students this fall: Jon Zatorski, Aditya Rane, and Sophie Cook. Looking forward to what they will accomplish in the coming years!

Peach picking

The Pompano lab took a field trip to Chiles Orchard in Crozet to celebrate a successful summer. Lots of peach cobbler the following week. Yum!

Pompano lab joins the UVA Cancer Center

We are thrilled to be the newest member of the UVA Cancer Center as part of the Immunology & Immunotherapy Program.  We look forward to participating in the research of the center and being part of a community that seeks to find treatments and cures for such a devastating set of diseases.

The UVA Cancer Center is one of a prestigious national network of centers supported by the National Cancer Institute at the NIH.