Each summer, Weitz lab welcomes many talented young students to explore their research interests. This year, we had the following summer interns. Thanks to the mentors who spent their time guiding them in various research projects! Bravo!
Emma Houllegatte (mentor: Kevin Jahnke)
Solene Ludwig (mentor: Sijie Sun, Qiaoling Huang)
Bianca, Drealle, Oliver (mentor: Yan Liu, Chunhuan Liu, Robinson Loren)
Qixin Hu (mentor: John Heyman)
Felix, Alex Young (mentor: Will Wang)
Marion Hamonou, Russell Farnsworth (mentor: Seongsoo Kim)
Here are some examples of their projects.
Emma modifies the membrane of lipid vesicles with synthetic polymers to unravel their effect on the cellular uptake of liposomes. Her work deepens our understanding of liposome-cell interactions and their implications for drug delivery.
Solene worked on cytoplasmic rheology by inserting magnetic beads into living cells and studying cytoplasmic deformation in the plastic regime through the application of magnetic force using a magnetic tweezer. By coating the beads and bounding them to molecular motors, it is possible, through micro-injection technology, to delve into a more comprehensive analysis of the characteristics of these protein motors.
Bianca, Drealle and Oliver studied the antibacterial effects of four different types Navajo tea/herbs. They compared the effects of extraction conditions on the antibacterial effects of tea/herb extracts. They also worked on encapsulating the tea extracts into microgels to extend their potential pharmaceutical applications.
Qixin worked on a high throughput screening and isolation system for bacteriophage. They encapsulated bacteriophage and target bacteria into porous solid shells, whose pore size was small enough to block the phage but allowed cells to be supplemented by culture media. The system was efficient because capsules could be sorted with standard sorting machines.
Alex’s project studies the homogeneous nucleation of colloidal crystals. Homogeneous nucleation is the phase transition from liquid or gas to solid crystal without the presence of a substrate or other outside structure, and it is the driving force behind numerous physical, natural, and industrial processes. Experimentally, this project involves synthesizes colloids, which are small silica spheres, observing their behavior under a confocal microscope, and then identifying the resulting crystals and measuring a nucleation rate.
Felix worked on two projects, one of which was looking at the differential growth of crystals in a colloidal solution and the other was looking for a new way to identify crystals using voronoi polyhedra. Specifically, we aim to understand how crystalline particles will act in the phase transition from solid to liquid to help understand the crystalline properties as they are an important concept for future technologies.
