Porous, soft materials for single-cell capture and gene sequencing

Single-cell analysis has the potential to reveal the complex workings of biological systems for addressing a broad range of human health issues, particularly in the area of vaccines and immune responses.  However, technologies available for single-cell analysis are often slow, expensive, and limited to a small number of measurements for a single sample. Soft materials have the potential to be applied as massively parallel microreactors for cell capture and gene sequencing, and could permit a tremendous leap in the ability to understand single-cell systems on a comprehensive scale.

To address this gap, REU students in the DeKosky lab will help to advance new soft material technologies for the comprehensive genetic analysis of adaptive immune responses. Students will develop and apply advanced knowledge of materials and biology to achieve single-cell capture and comprehensive gene sequencing using several test experimental systems, permitting the optimization and discovery of new tools for single-cell analysis.  This work will enable advanced understanding of human immune responses in the settings of health and disease and provide REU students with a new set of skills in soft materials as applied to biological systems analysis. Students will learn to combine the synthesis and analysis of soft material properties with advanced toolkits in molecular biology, gaining skills in droplet stability and hydrogel chemistry, single-cell isolation and genetic analysis, and fundamental aspects of immune responses as related to vaccination, natural infection, cancer, autoimmunity, and other disease states.