During my time in the Schnabel Lab, I have mentored a number of talented undergraduate and veterinary research scholars. This summer, I am very fortunate that one of my former undergraduate mentees, Alexandra Grobman, is joining me again as a rising 2nd year vet student and summer Veterinary Scholar! The Veterinary Scholars program provides veterinary students with mentored research experiences in the biomedical sciences. Alex will be using mixed leukocyte reactions to determine if differences in MHC expression between untreated and TGF-β2-treated MSCs affects the activation of allogeneic T cells following the inhibition of prostaglandin E2. She will present her work later this summer at the Boehringer Ingelheim NIH National Veterinary Scholars Symposium.
With Alex finishing up the last bit of my project on the cell-mediated immunogenicity of TGF-β2-treated MSCs, I’ll be focusing more on my research elucidating how TGF-β2 downregulates MHC expression. I’m excited to to be able to present this data for the first time later this month at the NC State Postdoctoral Research Symposium.