Biography
I was born in Beijing, China+,+ but my family and I immigrated to the US when I was young and now I call East Lyme (famous for Lyme disease), Connecticut my home. I found myself interested in the math and sciences at an early age, which made my decision to attend Worcester Polytechnic University an obvious choice. I majored in chemical engineering, which combined the two subjects I was interested in at the time – engineering and chemistry. During my time at WPI, I found that my interests slowly shifted from the industrial applications of my education toward research, leading me to complete my senior thesis abroad at the École Nationale Supériore des Industries Chemiques in France where I studied surface tension at the oil-water interface in the presence of biological surfactants. This, coupled with a few biochemistry courses shifted my interests more towards engineering and research with a focus on biological systems. In 2009, I graduated top of my class from WPI with a BS in Chemical Engineering and a minor in Biochemistry. During this time, I also saw the beginnings of what would blossom into a daily ritual of completing crosswords.
At Cornell University, I have worked for the past five years under guidance of Dr. Matt DeLisa on a project aimed at saving the world. My research focuses on the development of novel vaccines using the ability of Escherichia coli to produce self-contained vesicles that we can engineer to deliver a variety of different antigens from pathogenic organisms. We have been able to carry this project from the design and production of these vesicle vaccines through to immunization studies carried out in mice. While research has been a primary focus of my graduate career, opportunities to teach have also arisen. I have been a teaching assistant for an undergraduate senior laboratory class as well as a graduate level bioprocess engineering course. Additionally, I given the opportunity to prepare and take over lecturing duties of a junior level course on separations. From these experiences, I have learned that teaching is a passion that I would like to pursue and maintain wherever I end up after graduate school.
Living five years in the remote town of Ithaca, New York has also led me to develop a healthy obsession with cycling, volleyball and winter sports. These physical activities have been a great and necessary counterpart to my other passion; food.
Research
My research in the DeLisa Group is centered on the functionalization of outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) – nanoscale vesicles produced naturally from the outer membrane of bacteria – for a variety of biotechnological applications. While my primary focus is on vaccine development, OMVs can be used in the field of bioenergy. One possible use of engineered OMVs is in biofuels production as a way to scaffold multiple different cellulases for increasing the efficiency of cellulose digestion. Cellulose makes up a major portion of the plant cell wall and is one of the most abundant sources of biomass on the planet. It has the potential to be a major source of renewable energy. Unfortunately the energy in cellulose is locked up within long, branched sugar polymers that must be first broken down into smaller monomers prior to fermentation into biofuels. Cellulase enzymes break down these polymers but different types are required to completely digest the cellulose. By anchoring them onto the surface of OMVs in a specific sequence, we can form a veritable assembly line for the processive breakdown of cellulose. These cellulases can be anchored to the surface of OMVs through a protein scaffold on the outer membrane. The scaffold contains a number of proteins, called dockerins that can specifically bind their partner cohesion protein. Therefore, by linking the cellulases to cohesins, we can achieve specific anchoring of these enzymes on the surface of OMVs. 