Tanner Quon

Class of 2018

Education: Blended BS and MS in Biomedical Engineering at Cal Poly

 

Biography

Tanner is interested in stem cell research because he believes it is the forefront of medical advancement and he wants to be a part of developing therapies for currently untreatable or poorly treated maladies. He is most interested in vascular and cardiovascular problems, specifically heart attack and stroke, both for preventative care and functional regeneration of injured tissue. He hopes to enjoy an industry or research position immediately following completion of the program; however, eventually going back to school to pursue an MD or PhD is always an option, or perhaps even coming back to academia as an instructor.

Tanner is working at Capricor Therapeutics, Inc in Los Angeles on the Process Development team under Kiel Peck. He is developing scale-up protocols for exosome production from Cardiosphere-Derived Cells (CDCs) exploiting a bioreactor platform. Clinical scale production of cells or cell-based drug products requires an incredible number of cells, in comparison to academic or research settings, making scale-up a critical component of pushing biologic products to market.