Single-cell imaging and single-cell manipulation: Measurement considerations for emerging technologies

Speaker: Simona Patange, NIST

Host: Arpita Upadhyaya

Abstract: Dr. Patange is an alumni of the UMD Biophysics Program (2013-2020), and was co-advised by Drs. Michelle Girvan (UMD Physics), Dan Larson (NIH), and David Levens (NIH). Dr. Patange participated in the NCI-UMD Partnership for Integrative Cancer Research and was in Cohort 1 of the UMD-NSF COMBINE Program. For her doctoral research, she utilized optogenetic engineering with quantitative live-cell microscopy to determine how the MYC oncogene alters RNA expression events and transcription factor binding dynamics in human cells. In recognition of her achievements, Dr. Patange was invited to represent the graduating class of Spring 2020 as the CMNS graduate student commencement speaker.

After receiving her doctorate, Dr. Patange was awarded a competitive 2-year NRC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship with the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland. In December 2022 she was promoted to staff Biologist within the Biosystems and Biomaterials Division of the NIST Material Measurement Laboratory. In her current role, she coordinates projects on cell-based specificity measurements for the NIST Genome Editing Program and NIST Genome Editing Consortium. Her current research focuses on quantitative single-cell metrics to characterize the activity of CRISPR/Cas genome editing systems.

This seminar will be a career/research talk, where Dr. Patange will describe her experience graduating from UMD and transitioning to a postdoc position at the start of the pandemic. She will highlight both her doctoral research and its connection to her current projects, and explain the factors that influenced her career decisions that lead to her current role.

Seminars start at 4:00 pm, and refreshments will be served at 3:45 pm. All seminars are held in the Conference Room (1116) of the Institute for Physical Science and Technology (IPST) Building unless otherwise noted.