CAREER: Artificial Cell Membranes for Ultra-Pure, High Throughput Cellular Isolation

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CBET-1351531BerronCell-based therapies, where cells are transplanted to naturally restore biological function, represent an exciting future biomedical application. Critically, current techniques for high-purity cell sorting are time-intensive processes which lack the speed to satisfy the emerging widespread need for purified cells in research. The PI recently discovered a rapid cell isolation method in which batch size is virtually unlimited and nonspecific cells are undetected. The developed technology, Antigen Specific Lysis (ASL), selectively coats targeted cells in a temporary protective membrane, then destroys all uncoated cells to yield viable, purified cells. The proposed work will investigate fundamental mechanisms and relationships governing ASL in cellular isolation. This career development plan provides the foundation for a long term research program in the development ASL for the high speed isolation of rare biological products which yields a high-purity isolate from poorly-expressed markers. This research explores fundamental questions of cellular protection, and applies these findings to a cellular isolation technique which has the potential to reduce the presence of non-targeted cells to undetectable levels while sorting at exceptionally high rates. Bioseparations will play a critical role in the future of the US economy, yet many postsecondary institutions lack sufficient staffing and expertise to offer these courses. A distance learning Bioseparations course will be developed to reach geographically disparate institutions, enabling a robust offering of Bioseparations materials to students several hundreds of miles away. This course will serve as a platform to probe the limits of collaborative learning techniques in distance learning environments. A significant limitation to Bioseparations education is a lack of online learning tools. ASL is built upon a foundation of diverse Bioseparations principles (e.g. lysis, filtration, sedimentation, adsorption), and this career development plan uses ASL as the centerpiece to online Bioseparations screencasts - short educational videos. These videos are popular among students, yet are currently limited in Chemical Engineering to core courses. The developed screencasts will be disseminated in collaboration with the NSF-funded, LearnChemE.com site, where the existing screencasts have had 1.6 million views in the last 12 months. Further, the screencasts will be critiqued and edited by the LearnChemE.com team, ensuring the highest quality educational products.