More than 50 international students to receive academic travel awards for SLAS 2020

Oak Brook, IL (USA) – The Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening, (SLAS) has selected 53 life sciences students to receive SLAS Tony B. Academic Travel Awards. Award winners will present their research at the SLAS 2020 International Conference and Exhibition in San Diego, CA, USA, January 25-29, 2020.

These notable undergraduate students, graduate students, post-doctoral researchers and junior faculty members from 12 countries were selected by an independent panel of judges who evaluated their abstract proposals based on scientific merit and potential impact of the research toward the advancement of life sciences discovery and technology.

SLAS Tony B. Academic Travel Award winners receive a travel stipend, including roundtrip travel and shared hotel accommodations, for SLAS2020. In addition, they receive full conference registration, which includes access to more than 140 podium presentations, hundreds of poster presentations, 22 short courses, more than 300 exhibitors, as well as workshops, meetings, tutorials, special events and networking opportunities.

Listed alphabetically by their home country, the SLAS Tony B. Academic Travel Award winners for 2020:

Argentina

Franco Caram, National University of La Plata

In Silico High-Throughput Screening by Machine Learning for the Discovery of New Treatments for Chagas Disease

Australia

Souptik Basu, Giffin University

Combined VEGF and PDGF Therapy to Repair Secondary Injury Induced by Spinal Cord Injury

Lynn Nazareth

A Novel Medium-Throughput Imaging Assay to Determine How Glial Cells Respond to Pathogens

Choon Leng So, University of Queensland

High-Throughput Assessment of Calcium Signaling in MDA-MB-231 Breast Cancer Cells Expressing the Genetically Encoded Calcium Indicator GCaMP6m and Cultured in Different Matrix Stiffness

Brazil

Cyro Lucas

Environmentally Friendly Manufacturing of Flexible Graphite Electrodes for Wearable Zinc Monitoring in Sweat.

Lucas Sousa, Federal University of Goias

Instrument-Free Fabrication of Microfluidic Paper-Based Analytical Devices Through 3D Pen Drawing for Point-of-Care Testing

Canada

Tanya Bennet, University of British Columbia

Airway-On-a-Chip: Development and In-Vitro Validation of a Microfluidic Cell Culture Model for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)

Samuel Berryman

Image-Based Cell Phenotyping Using Deep Learning

Eric Cheng, University of British Columbia

Application of Deep Learning for Cell Printing Event Classification Within Piezoelectric Inkjet Nozzles

Richard Cheng

Wound-Conformal Delivery of Dermal Tissue Constructs for Full-Thickness Burn Treatment Using a Handheld Bioprinter

Jeong Hyun Lee, University of British Columbia

Lossless Immunocytochemistry for Precious Cell Samples

Shashi Malladi, University of Toronto

Microfluidic Platform for the Formation of Tissue-Engineered Blood Vessels from Aligned Collagen Sheets

Kenza Samlali

Single-Cell Hybrid Microfluidics as a Selection and Sorting Tool in the Mammalian Gene-Editing Pipeline

China

Jiahui Sun, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Smartphone-Based Colorimetric Bacterial Detection Platform for Antibiotic Assisted Screening

Denmark

Alexander Jansson, Technical University of Denmark

A Low-Cost, No-Required-Skill, 3D-Printed Peristaltic Pump for Multi-Channel Systems in Any Lab

Germany

Maximilian Benz, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

chemBIOS – A Multidisciplinary Platform for Unifying Early-Stage Drug Discovery

Marius Brehm, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Nanomolar and Parallel Solid Phase Synthesis in Droplet Microarrays for UV-Triggered On-Chip Cell Screening

Tobias Neckernuss, Ulm University – Sensific

High-Throughput Label-Free Optical Analysis and Sorting of Cells and Particles in Microfluidic Systems

Saskia Reichelt, Technische Universitaet Dresden

Development of a Gold Nanoparticle-Based Colorimetric Sensor for a Sensitive Endotoxin Detection in Aqueous Solutions

Engy Shokry, Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich

Metabolomics: A Strategy for Monitoring Partial Enteral Nutrition Treatment and Identifying Metabolic Signatures of Inflammation in Paediatric Crohn’s Disease Patients in Remission

Japan

Shingo Honda, University of Tokyo

Air-Sealed Multi-Dimensional (MD) Digital Assay for Detection of Inhibitor-Resistant Influenza Virus

Netherlands

Maciej Grajewski

A Portable Quality Control Lab in the Era of Food and Beverage Craftsmanship

Poland

Witold Postek

Microfluidic Platform for Screening of Antibiotic Susceptibility at the Single-Cell Level

Sandra Skorupska, Warsaw University of Technology

Electrochemotherapy Efficacy Evaluation Using Lab-On-a-Chip System

Patrycja Sokolowska

Organ-On-a-Chip: Three-Dimensional Pancreatic Islet Model Under Flow Condition.

Singapore

Agata Blasiak

CURATE.AI Enabled Personalised Dosing for Multiple Myeloma

Eliza Fong

Development of Colorectal Cancer Patient-Derived Organoid-Fibroblast Models Suitable for Drug Testing

Theodore Kee

Personalizing Digital Therapeutics with CURATE.AI identified N.1 profiles

United States

Peter Attayek

Novel Oxygen-Gradient Platform for the Co-Culture of Anaerobic Gut Microbiota with Primary Human Colon Epithelium

Amar Basu, Bioelectronica

Real-time Tracking of Droplets and Single Cells at 12,000 Events per Second Using GPU-Accelerated Image Processing

Julia Bauman, Broad Institute

Pooled Cell Painting for Massively Multiplexed Optical Phenotyping

Valentine Courouble, Scripps Research

Novel Application of Proteolysis Targeting Chimera Technology for Target Identification of the Liver Receptor Homolog-1 Modulator SR1848

Daniela Dengler, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery

Testing Funnel for Identification and Characterization of Small Molecule Modulators Targeting Secretin Receptors

Joseph De Rutte

High-Throughput Encapsulation and Selection of Cells Based on Antibody Secretion Using Lab-on-a-Particle Technology

Aviv Elor, NIH/NCATS

BioLumin – An Immersive Mixed Reality Experience for Interactive Biomedical Visualization

Mark Hendricks, Whitman College

Lab Automation in the Undergraduate Chemistry Curriculum

Jorden Johnson, University of Minnesota

Evaluating the Advantages of Using 3D-Enriched Fragments for Targeting Bromodomain

Jihwan Lee, Rice University

High-Content Screening of Millions of Single-Cell Variants Enabled by Single-Cell In Situ Tagging

Chia-Wei Liu

Rapid and Sensitive Detection of Citrus Tristeza Virus by Using Micro-Homogenizer and Reverse Transcriptase-Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification (RT-LAMP)

Sidharth Modha, University of California Riverside

Characterization of Laser-Etched Grooves for Use in Paper-Based Analytical Devices

Prithvijit Mukherjee, Northwestern University

Automated Nano-Fountain Probe Electroporation for Combinatorial Single Cell Transfection

Cesar Patino, Northwestern University

Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision Strategies for Automated Gene Editing Using a Nanofountain Probe Electroporation (NFP-E) System

Colleen Riordan

Microfluidic Platform for Optimizing the Formation of Nanodisc Libraries from Whole Cell Lysate to Enable Activity-Based Profiling

Avtar Singh

Optical Pooled Screens in Human Cells

Sunil Singh

High-Throughput Organotypic Breast Tumor Model Elucidates Dynamic Remodeling of Tumor Microenvironment

Adam Szmelter, University of Illinois at Chicago

3D-Printed Devices For 96-well Gas Control

Pradip Thakuri, University of Akron

Long-Term Synergistic Inhibition of Kinase Pathways Overcomes Drug Resistance of Colorectal Cancer Spheroids

Peter Wang, University of California Los Angeles

Optimizing Nanodiamond-Doxorubicin Complexes Toward Efficient Drug Loading and Sustained Release

Yilian Wang

A Microfluidic-Free Method to Perform Ultra-Sensitive ELISA on Cytometer Compatible Microgels

Xiao Wang, Harvard Medical School

Dynamic Profiling of Antitumor Activity of CAR T Cells using Micropatterned Tumor Arrays

Xuan Yang, Emory University

Ultra-High-Throughput Screening Platform for Inhibitors Targeting MKK3-MYC Interaction for Therapeutic Discovery

Jianhou Zhang, University of California Riverside

A Simple and Rapid Method for Nucleic Acids Extraction and Purification from Complex Plant Samples

The SLAS Tony B. Academic Travel Awards are named for Tony Beugelsdijk of Los Alamos National Laboratory, an Association for Laboratory Automation (ALA) co-founder who passed away in August 2009. (ALA merged with the Society for Biomolecular Screening to become SLAS in 2010.) Tony played an inspirational and instrumental role in laboratory robotics and made significant contributions to ALA and the scientific community as a whole. SLAS is pleased to remember him through a program that recognizes promising researchers who demonstrate outstanding achievement in life sciences discovery and technology.

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The SLAS Tony B. Academic Travel Awards program is one of many ways the SLAS Education Fund supports the next generation of life sciences discovery and technology leaders. Opportunities for advancement via the SLAS Graduate Education Fellowship Grant Program, SLAS Visiting Graduate Researcher Program, mentorship program and Career Connections, as well as the Student Poster Competition, provide a launching pad for young professionals. For more information about SLAS2020 visit http://www.SLAS2020.org. For more information about SLAS, visit http://www.SLAS.org or contact SLAS Global Headquarters at +1.877.990.SLAS(5727) or e-mail [email protected].

SLAS (Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening) is an international community of 16,000 professionals and students dedicated to life sciences discovery and 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.