1. What is your current role at CMRI?

I am the Assistant Director of Patient Cell Models in the Genomic Medicine Center. I work on developing patient cell models for disease recapitulation and drug screening purposes. For example, if we have a patient that has seizures, I can model the patient’s disease by generating brain organoids and then determine if we can recapitulate that phenotype in the organoids. Once we establish a model for the patient, we can screen drugs that might be effective in treating them. I spend my time trying to make these steps faster and more efficient.

This work has taken a lot of time and energy, but one example of how it was all worth it was when we were asked to determine if we could identify a drug that would help a patient suffering from seizures. In two months, I generated the appropriate cell model and used the brain organoids from the patient to model their seizures and then screened drugs and found one that decreased seizure activity significantly. That drug was given to the patient, and it resulted in a positive outcome.

2. What drew you to a career at CMRI?

I wanted to do research that could have a more direct impact on patients than the typical academic research I did previously, where you work on a project for a given time and publish a paper and then move on to the next project. This was important to me for personal reasons. My oldest son was born with a frontonasal encephalocele, a rare birth defect where part of his brain was protruding between the nose and forehead. This required major surgery, and then years of seeing a team of doctors multiple times a year to see if he was developing properly and if there were any complications. This was very stressful with all the uncertainty about his health. Luckily, he is now a typical 14-year-old thriving and excelling in school and life. This uncertainty happened again with my youngest. When we got pregnant with our youngest there was concern about his health and we went through genetic testing during my wife’s pregnancy. Even with that it wasn’t until he was a little over a year old that we knew he was going to be fine. Having all that uncertainty with both of my children made me want to ensure that other families had the resources they needed, which led me to Children’s Mercy.

3. What are your research/career goals?

I want to continue advancing the patient cell models and organoid technology and use it for disease modeling and drug screens to help diagnosis and potentially treat patients with rare diseases.

4. What is your favorite thing about working at CMRI?

I love the resources and access to patient samples that has allowed me to do the type of research that can have a real-time impact on patients.

5. What is on your bucket list?

• Visit all the national parks.
• Take a family trip to Hawaii.
• Visit Machu Picchu.
• My 6-year-old wants me to create a dinosaur chicken so that’s top of my list.