Colleen A. Richards
Class of 2021
Education: Blended BS + MS Biomedical Engineering at Cal Poly
Biography
Colleen is interested in stem cell research and regenerative medicine as a way to create new treatments for diseases like cancer. She has a strong interest in genetics and hopes to combine this with regenerative medicine to help those who haven’t been able to find success through traditional methods. As an emerging area of medicine, this field is especially interesting and there is a huge amount of room to explore. She hopes to use the internship and learning opportunities provided by the program to grow her knowledge and skills. After completion of her master’s degree, Colleen hopes to move into the biotechnology industry, working to improve the lives of patients worldwide.
Colleen chose to complete her internship at ThermoFisher Scientific as a Cell Biology R&D intern under the direction of Dr. Uma Lakshmipathy. Her project focused on developing methods for simultaneous gene-editing and reprogramming using CRISPR/Cas9 technology and Sendai-based reprogramming vectors. This project aimed to decrease the time required to develop gene-edited iPSC lines, which is currently done sequentially. When performed sequentially, the process takes weeks to months to reprogram cells and select colonies, and then the colony selection and screening process is repeated after gene editing. After this process, reprogrammed and edited cells can then be used for research on genetic diseases, development of potential pharmaceutical drugs, generation of cells for autologous transplantation, and more. For her project, she focused on evaluating the effect of 5 different small molecules on the efficiency of simultaneous editing and reprogramming as well as optimizing conditions for this process.
