Iowa State University chemical and biological engineering post-doctorate research associate Latrisha Petersen earned second place in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) BioNanotechnology Graduate Student Competition, presented at AIChE’s annual meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, October 18.
Petersen earned the award for her research on the rational design of pathogen mimicking amphiphilic nanoparticle adjuvants. While treating diseases like anthrax and pneumonia, the goal of her research is to develop a vaccine that mimics an immune response to an infection while avoiding undesirable side effects of the disease the vaccine treats. Click here to read the project abstract.
The project originated when Petersen was a graduate student in the biomaterials/biomedical engineering research thrust of Iowa State’s chemical engineering program. Associate Dean for Research Balaji Narasimhan, who is pictured at right, was her faculty advisor. Petersen also worked with veterinary microbiology and preventive medicine department’s Yashdeep Phanse, Amanda Ramer-Tait, Bryan Bellaire and Michael Wannemuehler; materials science and engineering department’s Chang Sun Kong, Scott Broderick and Rajan Krishna; and fellow chemical and biological engineering then-graduate student Bret Ulery.
This was the third year in a row that an ISU chemical engineering graduate student placed in the competition. In 2010 Brenda Carrillo-Conde, who is now a post-doctorate research associate at the University of Texas-Austin, placed third. Bret Ulery, who now works at the University of Connecticut as a post-doc, won AIChE’s Bionanotechnology Graduate Student Competition in 2009.
Petersen also earned a Research Excellence Award last spring, which is awarded to “the best of the best” graduate students at Iowa State who show outstanding research and creativity.
Also at the AIChE Annual Meeting, Narasimhan presented a plenary lecture within the Food, Pharmaceuticals and Bioengineering Division of AIChE. Narasimhan discussed pathogen-mimicking nanoparticles, as vaccines, that prevent and treat respiratory infectious diseases. A plenary lecture honors an accomplished member of a certain field, in this case pharmaceuticals, and his or her major project.