Cellular Center

Here at NIH we get patients from all over the world. A lot of them are very sick, sometimes hopeless. Many times all of their or many of their treatment doors have been closed. To be or having a chance to be able to be a part of the team to where we take the chance to cure their illness or make their life better is the most exciting part of my day and I get that excitement every day. Well, NIH has been a leader in cancer immunotherapy for many years. Some of the very brilliant scientists working there. So it was an opportunity for me to come over here and working alongside some of the scientists getting some new experiences in cancer immunotherapy and enhancing my own research experiences. It's the excitement of being able to use new technologies a lot of times first in the entire world and working with a group of renowned scientists. Here at Center for Cellular Engineering we work with protocols that are either on phase one or phase two of clinical research trials where a certain drug or a therapy or both are being applied to a patient or a patient population based on their sickness and we are trying to reduce their illness and improve their health. Well, I work in the product development section so a lot of the things that I do is optimizing and fine-tuning the protocols and these reagents that get made that get put into the clinic. So it's been really nice to work with these clinical products and fine-tuning all of these little aspects of it that will eventually actually go on to patients. You have to be able to learn new things every day, be adaptive to it, apply it and follow it accordingly. Within this section we work with cancer immunotherapy, cellular engineering so there's a lot of cell culturing involved, working with viruses, working with microscopes and cell counters and things Just generally a lot of molecular and cell biology. Cell cultures is a big part of our position here and then good understanding of GMP rules. You have to love science, you have to understand science, you have to be passionate about it so take lots of science courses, have fun with them, ask questions, share knowledge, you are the future so go for it. Within the new revolution of cancer immunotherapy, cellular engineering has just begun to show its potential in both the clinic and worldwide. I see a pretty bright future for cellular engineering in the coming years. I mean we are talking about studying cells from its core and manipulating based on patient sickness or needs. When you talk about that you are basically talking about possibilities that are virtually endless.