I think microbes are basically the coolest things ever.
They are basically the reason
that all life on Earth exists.
They cycle nutrients in the environment.
They make sure crops can grow.
The proper set of microbes everywhere on our bodies basically
is the reason that we're healthy.
So whenever that's out of whack, that's really why we get sick.
And so being able to understand that
and develop technologies to fix that is so cool.
Our lab, basically the goal of all of our projects
is to improve health equity globally.
We have four post-docs, four grad students, and 12 undergrads
who have really set the culture for our lab too.
They're driving projects and they're incredible.
We have projects in sustainability and clean energy, as well as in human health care.
We try to develop technologies that are inexpensive
and can be deployed in developing nations and in non-ideal conditions.
I have a really creative postdoc who is developing
little gold electrodes to do viral diagnostics
where we can amplify the genetic material and then use that to activate CRISPR–Cas12 enzyme.
And so that once it's activated by the patient's sample,
can chew up DNA on an electrode and turn our signal off.
Normally when you make an electrode, you have to go into a clean room
and even four kind of disposable platforms that are relatively inexpensive,
it still requires trained personnel
and centralized facilities, so they can still cost
several dollars each. Our electrodes, you can make on a benchtop
using food grade gold leaf to make a sticker out of the gold.
And then she puts that on old school transparency film
And it costs about $0.16 worth of gold and $0.50 per electrode.
And we think we can use them
to actually fabricate devices on site in low resource settings.
So far, she's been able to detect HIV and HPV at clinically relevant levels.
And right now we're trying to expand this platform for COVID testing
and tuberculosis.
One of the main challenges across health care and agriculture, too,
is protecting certain types of bacteria because they're very sensitive
to things like temperature fluctuations and in many cases, oxygen.
So one of the main challenges right now with agriculture is chemical fertilizers,
because it destroys microbes that are good, that are naturally in the soil.
So there's a huge movement to try to replenish the soil
with those microbes, but we can't safely produce them right now.
So one of my post-docs works with two undergrads
and developed this coating that self-assemble on the outside of
individual microbes and protects them from stresses like oxygen.
And we found temperature and humidity, too.
So we can actually store a lot of these strains
And so we think that this will be a pretty universal technology to enable us
to actually make these products that we couldn't before.
There aren't a whole lot of women in chemistry or chemical engineering,
and I have always had really passionate and supportive female mentors.
So seeing my students get results is the most gratifying thing ever.
And I really think the most fun part
about research in the lab is you don't know the answer.
It feels like you're an explorer doing something
completely new and different that no one's ever tried before.
And it's been really great to see natural collaborations and new projects
spring out from my students and post-docs and undergrads talking to each other
and interacting and getting help on one component of their project
that leads to a side project that leads to another major project.
And it's just really amazing
to see that collaboration that just kind of naturally happens
when you bring talented people with different skillsets together.