Sensus, an international, undergraduate competition to sense biomolecules, held its annual contest on September 8th and 9th.  The SenseNC team had three representatives that also perform research in the BioPep labs who went to the Netherlands to represent the team.  From left to right, Brendan Turner, Alice DiFazio, and Calvin Shanahan all had a great time and showed off the work of the team.

Also cool, the SenseNC team was the only – and the first – team from the US to compete, and thus also the first team to place in several categories!  Next year we’ll be even better!

Congrats to SenseNC, the SensUs competition, and all the potential patients who may be helped through the technologies developed.

Dr. Menegatti’s work in Santa Barbara continues to have far reaching effects, as seen in the recent publication “A hyaluronic acid conjugate engineered to synergistically and sequentially deliver gemcitabine and doxorubicin to treat triple negative breast cancer” in the Journal of Controlled Release.  Some of the ideas presented in this paper continue to inform our work and push the boundaries of drug delivery.

Congrats to Dr. Menegatti!

Dr. Menegatti has been awarded a research grant by the National Science Foundation to work on a stem cell distillery that can gently separate desired from undesired cells based on therapeutic potential.  Beyond the potential benefits to American healthcare that this research could reap, this grant will help grow our lab by allowing him to expand the breadth of his projects and, in the process, support more students, postdocs, and undergraduate researchers.

These grants are highly competitive, awarded only to a small percentage of applicants, and are provided with the goal of having a broad impact on both the researcher and on the progress of human technology.  Our lab’s focus on the cutting edge of drug delivery, chemistry, and bioseparations promise to bring new innovations to the table and advance scientific and engineering practices for the coming century.

To learn more about the NSF, please visit their website.  To learn more about our upcoming projcet, feel free to read the award page for grant number 1743404.