New Matter: Inside the Minds of SLAS Scientists
New Matter: Inside the Minds of SLAS Scientists
SLAS2024 | Interviews with Winners of the Student Poster Awards, Tony B. Award and SLAS-NOBCChE Scholarship (Sponsored by Roche)
Recorded straight from the SLAS2024 exhibit hall floor – New Matter host, Hannah Rosen, Ph.D., speaks with winners of the Student Poster Award, Tony B. Award and the SLAS-NOBCChE Scholarship!
Congratulations to our winners!
(Listed in interview order)
Transcript Available on Buzzsprout
Student Poster Award
Marissa E. Davies (National Institutes of Health)
High-Throughput Characterization of Isozyme-Specific Aldehyde Dehydrogenase (ALDH) Inhibitors
Kui You (National University of Singapore)
Address Infections by Multi-Drug Resistant Bacteria with Artificial Intelligence-Empowered Combination Therapies
Tony B. Travel Award
Arun Kumar (National University of Singapore)
High Aspect Ratio Nanostraws for High-Throughput Primary Immune Cell Transfection
SLAS-NOBCChE Scholarship
Marygrace Pelekamoyo (J. Frank Dobie High School)
Nathaniel Gauthier (Carver High School of Engineering and Science)
Our Sponsor for this Episode
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To learn more, visit: sequencing.roche.com
Visit our Student Resources to learn more about these awards.
Stay connected with SLAS
About SLAS
SLAS (Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening) is an international professional society of academic, industry and government life sciences researchers and the developers and providers of laboratory automation technology. The SLAS mission is to bring together researchers in academia, industry and government to advance life sciences discovery and technology via education, knowledge exchange and global community building.
Upcoming SLAS Events:
SLAS2025 International Conference and Exhibition
- January 25-29, 2025
- San Diego, CA, USA
SLAS Europe 2025 Conference and Exhibition
- 20-22 May 2025
- Hamburg, Germany
Hannah Rosen: 00:00:06 Hello everyone. I'm on the SLAS2024 exhibition floor with SLAS student poster award winner, Marissa Davies, who's here to speak with us for a few minutes about her award-winning project. So, Marissa, first of all, congratulations on your win. How do you feel about winning the student poster award?
Marissa Davies: 00:00:22 Uh, it was really exciting. There were so many, uh, outstanding posters. I'm really, I'm really honored to have won the award.
Hannah Rosen: 00:00:28 Wonderful. Can you tell us a little bit about, uh, the project that you presented in your winning poster?
Marissa Davies: 00:00:33 I presented on high throughput characterization of isozyme-specific inhibitors for aldehyde dehydrogenase enzymes. It's a family of 19 enzymes. We focused on five of them. These enzymes are implicated in many human diseases such as cancer, but there's a high degree of homology, so it's difficult to find isozyme-specific inhibitors. And so that's what we have been working on.
Hannah Rosen: 00:00:58 Fantastic. So, what are your future plans for this research
Marissa Davies: 00:01:03 Um, it's been going on for a while, even before I started working on it. Um, we're working towards a publication right now.
Hannah Rosen: 00:01:13 That's fantastic. Um, what are your, what's your current position right now?
Marissa Davies: 00:01:18 Currently I'm a post-baccalaureate trainee. I graduated from undergrad in 2021 and I have been at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and my current position since January of 2022.
Hannah Rosen: 00:01:33 Great. And, uh, what are your long-term career goals?
Marissa Davies: 00:01:35 My long-term career goals be to get an MD PhD and carry out bench research in addition to caring for patients in the clinic, uh, bringing new treatments to the patient's care and also hopefully using that expertise to inform research.
Hannah Rosen: 00:01:53 Wow. Oh my gosh, that is so ambitious. And I'm, I have a PhD. I thought about doing the MD and I was like, there's no way. That is, that's very impressive to me. <laugh>. So, um, how has your experience been at SLAS2024 so far?
Marissa Davies: 00:02:09 It's been really great. Um, I feel like a kid at Disney World. I get to see so many, uh, outstanding scientists. Uh, we're doing really great work. Been to uh, presentations and I've learned a lot.
Hannah Rosen: 00:02:24 That's great. Thank you so much Marissa, for taking some time to talk to us today and we look forward to seeing where your research and where your career takes you. Thank you.
Hannah Rosen: 00:02:35 Hello everyone. I'm on the SLAS2024 exhibition floor with our SLAS student poster award winner Kui, who is here to speak with us for a few minutes about his award-winning project. So Kui, first of all, congratulations on your win. How do you feel about winning the student poster award?
Kui You: 00:02:50 Uh, thank you. I'm very honored to receive the award.
Hannah Rosen: 00:02:58 Can you tell us a little bit about the project that you presented in your award-winning poster?
Kui You: 00:02:59 Of course. The project I'm presenting here is about utilizing artificial intelligence to design effective drug combinations against multi-drug resistant bacteria. Those bacteria are highly resistant and allow for limited treatment options. So, we utilize an artificial intelligence derived platform to determine, to determine effective drug combinations from a large surge space over half a million possible combinations with only a small number of tests. So, this efficiency can help us facilitate the therapy development against the bacteria.
Hannah Rosen: 00:03:38 Wow. Uh, what are your future plans with this research?
Kui You: 00:03:40 Until now, it's still an individual study. For the next step we want to proceed to clinical trials and the ultimate goal is to translate the drug conditions discovered in this project into political applications.
Hannah Rosen: 00:03:56 That's really ambitious. That's awesome. Uh, what is your current position?
Kui You: 00:04:00 Uh, now I'm a PhD student in Dean Ho’s lab in the department of Biomedical Engineering at the National University of Singapore.
Hannah Rosen: 00:04:09 What are your long-term career goals?
Kui You: 00:04:11 Not decided yet, but um, I want to continue research, research in healthcare area and hope my research can help treat patients and facilitate their recovery.
Hannah Rosen: 00:04:26 That’s awesome. So, how's your experience been at SLAS2024 so far?
Kui You: 00:04:30 Oh, it has been an enriching experience. The diversity of sessions and discussions, um, are both, both informative and inspiring. I took a course about, uh, lab automation and listened to the talks by other researchers. They provided new insights and perspective for my own research. So, it's quite a rewarding experience for me.
Hannah Rosen: 00:04:53 Fantastic. Well Kui, thank you so much for taking some time and speaking with us today. It's been really interesting to learn a little bit more about you and your research and uh, we look forward to seeing where your research and your career takes you.
Kui You: 00:05:04 Thank you.
Hannah Rosen: 00:05:08 Hello everyone. I'm on the SLAS2024 exhibition hall with one of our Tony B award winners, Arun, who is here to speak with us for a few minutes about his research and experiences at SLAS. So, can you briefly describe for us the project that you're presenting at this conference?
Arun Kumar: 00:05:22 Of course. Uh, so what we've basically done is to develop uh, nanofabrication system using high aspect-ratio nanostraws, which, you can imagine as long nano needle or like, nano cylinders and use of, uh, microsecond long pulse electric seals to transmit any type of biomolecule cargo into primary immune cells. Currently the transfection industry in cell manufacturing is limited because the efficiency of CAR transgene introduction is uh, very low. And uh, current existing strategies like viruses and bulk electroporation often cause like, cell toxicity concerns and low efficiency. And through our poster here at SLAS, we've shown that uh, our technique called NEI, or nano-electro-injection, is minimally pertivative to immune cell after the transfection, and also maintains the immune cell functionalities.
Hannah Rosen: 00:06:08 Ah, oh, that's awesome. So how was your experience in applying for and then receiving the Tony B award?
Arun Kumar: 00:06:15 I'm actually excited to get the Tony B travel award and this is my first time here at the SLAS conference and pretty much enjoying it.
Hannah Rosen: 00:06:23 Oh, great. Wonderful. I'm so glad that you were able to come and that you're having a good time so far. So, what are your future plans for this research?
Arun Kumar: 00:06:30 Currently we are building a prototype that could, uh, transfect multi-well at a given time and also achieve a high throughput of more than tens of millions of cells in one transfection drug. This will be groundbreaking because as I said, the throughput of the current cell manufacturing industry is low. Secondly, uh, we would also want to test out with patient samples from our collaborators, which would bring in like, patient to patient variants or so, which would be interesting to checkout.
Hannah Rosen: 00:06:53 Yeah, that sounds really interesting. Uh, what is your current position?
Arun Kumar: 00:06:57 I’m a, finally a PhD candidate from National University of Singapore.
Hannah Rosen: 00:07:01 Um, what are your long-term career goals?
Anun Kumar: 00:07:03 Um, hopefully after my PhD I would apply for a postdoctoral position somewhere in Singapore or even in the States.
Hannah Rosen: 00:07:09 That’s great. And do you plan on staying in academia do you think, or are you keeping your options open?
Anun Kumar: 00:07:13 Uh, currently yes, in academia, but I would also keep my options open.
Hannah Rosen: 00:07:18 So, uh, how's your experience been at SLAS2024 so far?
Anun Kumar: 00:07:21 Wonderful. Actually, the exhibitor hall is quite massive and I, I need to look at a couple more exhibitors actually.
Hannah Rosen: 00:07:28 Well thank you so much for taking some time to speak with us and uh, we'll let you go look at all those other exhibitors, but we really look forward to seeing where your research and where your career takes you.
Anun Kumar: 00:07:38 Yes, thank you. Thank you, Hannah.
Hannah Rosen: 00:07:42 Hello everyone. I'm here on the SLAS2024 exhibition floor with one of our 2023 SLAS NOBCChE scholarship winners, Mary Pelekamoyo, and she's here to speak with us for a few minutes about her award-winning project and her plans for the future. So first off, Mary, congratulations on your win. How do you feel about winning the 2023 SLAS NOBCChE scholarship?
Mary Pelekamoyo: 00:08:01 It has been just so amazing. The moment I learned about it, I was actually in my car, I just got back from my job and so I see this email and I'm just like, oh my gosh, I can't open this, I can't open this. But then I open it and it starts just like, thank you for applying. I'm like, oh, but then it was like, congratulations. And it was just such a incredible experience. I was started like, jumping outta my car, my neighbor thought I was going insane.
Mary Pelekamoyo: 00:08:26 But since then it's just been so amazing. Not only that financial support but just being able to attend these conferences. The NOBCChE Conference in October, I met so many people, I had such a great experience, and now I'm at SLAS and seeing, um, what they're doing with technology these days and seeing what my future is gonna look like as I continue study, it's been, words can't describe it, it's been incredible.
Hannah Rosen: 00:08:49 Oh, that's wonderful. I can imagine that like, when you see that email and it's like, starts out with like, thank you for applying. Yeah. <laugh>. So, I'm so glad it had good news for you in there. Um, so can you just give us a brief description of the project that you completed for the scholarship?
Mary Pelekamoyo: 00:09:02 Yeah, of course. So, my project was about e-waste. I've noticed in my neighborhood a lot of my neighbors just have like, TVs and radios just kind of sitting there and, you know, they have components that just start to like, leak into soil and I was wondering what kinda, what are the effects of that?
Mary Pelekamoyo: 00:09:18 And I did a little research myself and I found that it can kinda lead to birth defects, especially things like lead and cadmium and arsenic. If you have continued exposure, it really leads to some nasty effects. So, I wanna research what can we do to, uh, have these effects or reverse them. And so, what I looked into was plants, specifically the Indian mustard plant. And that plant has a really extensive root system which allows it to kind of take these metals out of the soil and pretty much makes the soil healthy again. So, my project just kind of research, to what extent can this plant remove soil or remove those chemicals and what other resources can we do to better our soil and prevent e-waste from having such a disastrous effect.
Hannah Rosen: 00:10:08 Wow, that is an incredible, a very ambitious project. And also, I had no idea that a plant could do that. I mean that's amazing. Where did you get the inspiration for focusing on that plant in particular?
Mary Pelekamoyo: 00:10:12 So, I pretty much just, I did a lot of research online. It's a process called photo extraction and pretty much every plant does it. But after I did some research, Indian mustard’s just really good at it because of its extensive root system, it's really resistant to heavy metals. So, it just made it the perfect, uh, test subject.
Hannah Rosen: 00:10:38 Wow. That is, that's so cool. I, I need to read this project 'cause that just sounds amazing. <laugh>. So, uh, what are your plans for after you finish high school?
Mary Pelekamoyo: 00:10:53 So, I'm in my senior year right now. I already kind of did most of my college applications. I'm still waiting for a few results, but right now my heart is on UT Austin. I'm gonna be a mechanical engineering major and right now I'm just thinking, you know, I'll go through the process, but I definitely wanna be involved in some clubs that involve helping the youth.
Mary Pelekamoyo: 00:10:56 Right now I'm a volunteer, so helping more people come in STEM like NOBCChE and SLAS have done for me is a big thing for me. And then especially going to grad school, obviously it's a little miles away so I'm not too sure where, when, but just taking it one step at a time and hopefully grabbing some friends across the way.
Hannah Rosen: 00:11:14 Oh yeah, absolutely. I've heard really good things about UT Austin, so I'm sure that that'll be a really fun and exciting program. Where are you from originally?
Mary Pelekamoyo: 00:11:20 I'm from Houston, Texas. So, I plan to stay in Texas at least for my undergrad and then move out of there and actually go to graduate school.
Hannah Rosen: 00:11:29 Awesome. So, what would be your dream career, do you think?
Mary Pelekamoyo: 00:11:33 So as I mentioned, I wanna go into mechanical engineering and this is mainly because I've always kinda been a hands-on type of person. I love just breaking things apart. So, mechanical engineering is a very diverse field. I also see myself as somebody who can't just like, stay in one thing my whole life. So, one year I could be working in more like a biology esque, you know, creating technology in the lab. The next year I could be in like, um, you know, more like, cars and more like, very hands-on oil. And I dunno, I just, every time I go to, I see something new, I'm like, I wanna put my heart into this. So just mechanical engineering, just where it, this for me, I can get my hands in but into many different pots.
Hannah Rosen: 00:12:19 Yeah, I can totally relate to that. Just wanting to like learn as much as possible and be involved in as many kind of different fields and industries as possible. I can totally relate to that. Um, so how has your experience been at SLAS2024 so far?
Mary Pelekamoyo: 00:12:21 It has been incredible. I mean, like I said, no words to describe. I've been just walking around every booth and I'm not gonna lie, I don't understand everything, but that's kind of the appeal. Like, they've just been so nice to me and they'll just sit there and like, oh yeah, this is our, um, this is what we're doing, this is how we're helping the environment. One of them was like, about pipette usage, I didn't realize, but I've done some chemistry labs and like, we go through pipette tips like crazy. He's like, oh, now we can use one pipette 70, 80 times. Like what? It's crazy. I'm just, every time I go to the booth like, oh, this is my next career. No you, no you, no you <laugh>. It's just been, and then meeting how many, uh, the amount of people I've met and just I'm sharing their stories. I mean, I'll never forget. Just so amazing.
Hannah Rosen: 00:13:08 Oh, well that's so fantastic and I'm so glad that we were able to be a part of this experience for you and we're so happy to have you here. Mary, thank you so much for taking the time outta your busy schedule to speak with us today.
Mary Pelekamoyo: 00:13:20 Thank you. Y'all have been amazing.
Hannah Rosen: 00:13:25 Hello everyone. I'm on the SLAS2024 exhibition floor with one of our 2023 SLAS NOBCChE scholarship winners, Nate Gauthier, who is here to speak with us for a few minutes about his award-winning project and plans for the future. So Nate, first of all, congratulations on your win. How do you feel about winning the 2023 SLAS NOBCChE scholarship?
Nate Gauthier: 00:13:46 Uh, I'm feeling great. I'm feeling like, you know, like my hard work over the course of this program is finally starting to pay off.
Hannah Rosen: 00:13:55 That's fantastic. Can you, uh, tell us a little bit about what the project is that you did for your award-winning scholarship?
Nate Gauthier: 00:14:02 Yeah, so my project is primarily focused on, uh, treatment mechanisms for removing toxins from wastewater that's used again as drinking water and recreational water.
Hannah Rosen: 00:14:16 Wow. What inspired you to, to undertake this project?
Nate Gauthier: 00:14:19 Yeah, I think I was just mainly inspired to do this by the fact that toxins are dangerous to our bodies, right? And they're present in a lot of water sources, especially in areas that are poorer than some other areas and so may not have as many resources and as many, as much accessibility to high level treatment methods, right? So, we wanted to, we wanted to create something that's more accessible to these areas. Um, particularly, I live in a very polluted area and my area is by no means, you know, wealthy. So, I experienced some of these issues and so that's, that's what kind of motivated me.
Hannah Rosen: 00:15:07 Yeah, that's fantastic. And yeah, what a, what a big issue to tackle with what an important one. Absolutely. So, what are your plans for after you finish high school?
Nate Gauthier: 00:15:15 I'm planning on definitely going to college. I wanna go to a college that's specialized in biomedical engineering and I want to pursue some sort of graduate or doctoral degree so that I can have that, those professional skills to go into what I wanna do for my career.
Hannah Rosen: 00:15:33 That's fantastic. So, speaking of your career, what, what would be your dream career to have?
Nate Gauthier: 00:15:38 So, uh, for a long time I've been interested in biomedical engineering because of mainly the coronavirus pandemic, uh, which had a big impact on me and my thinking. Uh, I was particularly interested in how the vaccines were developed and I wanted to kind of be a part of that process. And I was also interested in some of the new like, bio technologies that are being developed that could be used to solve some very big issues in health and healthcare. Uh, I also am very, very big on learning and, and teaching. I have an innate kind of passion to teach and that kind of shows up sometimes at, uh, the dinner table where I'm, where I'm sharing some, some cool facts with my family. And so, I think I may want to pursue a career as a professor and kind of, you know, just spread my knowledge and my experience on things to other young individuals who are growing up to become the next generation of, you know, our nation and our world. Uh, and I also have an interest in aerospace, which is kind of very different from biology, but yeah, I might wanna pursue that as well.
Hannah Rosen: 00:17:06 Yeah, I mean that's awesome and I'm sure that, you know, there's so many ways that you can merge all those interests into one and I think that that sounds like a really, really great goal. So, how's your experience been at SLAS2024 so far?
Nate Gauthier: 00:17:19 Uh, it's been great. I'm enjoying kind of seeing all of these new, new technologies from all of these different companies. The space is really big and so kind of futuristic. It's, it's really cool to see, you know, all the things that they have here to explore and all the people that come here with, you know, kind of the same interests and being a part of the same field and the same research and getting to talk to these people and getting to network. I'm also enjoying having a bit of fun. Right. I enjoyed last night. That was pretty cool. I enjoyed playing some cornhole. Uh, I enjoyed eating some really good food.
Hannah Rosen: 00:18:04 Did you ride the mechanical shark?
Nate Gauthier 00:18:05 Yes, I did <laugh> and I fell, I did better than some other people, but we ain't gonna talk about it. Um, and yeah, I enjoyed, they had some really good like waffles there or some, some really good like waffle cakes for a dessert and I was like, okay, yeah, these are pretty good. Um, I got some good photos, pretty good photo op. And I also back at, uh, back at my hotel, I checked out the pool there, did some work by the pool, so it was actually, it was a pretty enjoyable day. I enjoyed myself.
Hannah Rosen: 00:18:39 Awesome. Well Nate, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. We've really enjoyed hearing more about your research and your life plans and really look forward to seeing where your career takes you.
Nate Gauthier: 00:18:49 Thank you.
