Elizabeth Wayne

Blogger, Brainstormer, Concerned citizen, Engineer, Idea generator, Life mentor, Photographer, Potential employer, Scientist

I was raised in Mississippi. My father is a paraplegic Baptist minister and my mother is a schoolteacher. I told everyone around me I wanted to be a physicist at age 11 after completing a science fair project on nuclear fusion. I wanted to be the first to achieve sustainable fusion reactors as energy sources on Earth (yes at age 11). I achieved my childhood goal and earned a Bachelors in Physics from the University of Pennsylvania but I fell in love with optical imaging rather than nuclear fusion. And eventually cancer too. I got a PhD in Biomedical Engineering building live animal imaging platforms to visualize cancer as it spreads through the body. So I study ways to use immune cells to deliver therapeutic genes and proteins to the places our body needs them the most: in disease. 2017 TED Fellow

Education, Music, Culture, Children, Cancer treatment, healthcare systems, phdivas podcast

Drug and gene delivery remains a complex and significant barrier for many therapy treatments. Using immune cells, specialized cells in our body that protect us against infection, heal our cuts and bruises, and accumulate in regions of disease, as vehicles to deliver therapeutic genes and proteins is an incredibly powerful next-step in therapeutic delivery. This strategy has the potential to revolutionize the way we think of drug delivery and the way we treat disease.

biomedical engineering, cancer, gene delivery, nanomedicine, STEM education

90s R&B karaoke; Making cupcakes; dancing