I’m making sure our dreams are the right concentration with the NanoDrop.

Author: Ian Popp | Major: Chemical Engineering | Semester: Spring 2025

I’m Ian Popp, a dual major in the College of Engineering and the Walton College, majoring in chemical engineering and finance, and I am working with Dr. Christopher Nelson in the Biomedical Engineering Department. In my research, I have been focused on developing gene therapies for muscle tissue, with a particular interest in combating Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and Alzheimer’s.

I decided to work with Dr. Nelson because of his success in mentoring Mary Jia, who was a senior when I was a freshman. In May of last year, I attended a seminar from Dr. Drake, an exercise science professor from Virginia Tech with Dr. Nelson about muscle loss in mice predisposed to Alzheimer’s prior to the more known symptoms of memory loss. Since we were already working with a new gene editing tool in muscle tissue to treat Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), a muscle wasting genetic disorder, I became curious about using CRISPR-DREAM to develop a gene therapy that could slow muscle wasting associated with Alzheimer’s. I believe that by slowing the muscular loss, one might also slow or postpone the cognitive decline which is observed following the muscle loss. As Alzheimer’s is becoming more prevalent in the population as our population ages, Alzheimer’s research is expected to grow. In addition to satisfying my personal vendetta against Alzheimer’s, my SURF grant will serve as an avenue to secure more future funding for my research lab by targeting a wider array of problems by branching outside of just muscular dystrophy.

After my REU at UMBC last summer, I was able to schedule a meeting with Dr. Drake to discuss the possibility of using gene editing to modify disease progression. Following my meeting with Dr. Drake, Dr. Nelson and I discussed designing additional targets that would counter the observed changes in the mice genetically predisposed to Alzheimer’s, incorporating Alzheimer’s research into the CRISPR-DREAM project. Since there were now even more targets to test, Dr. Nelson and I have decided to design a constitutively expressed cell line which would have CRISPR-DREAM already inside of it allowing us to only need to insert the guides alone. We will also design a cell line with the SAM system as well for comparison.

Throughout my research projects, Dr. Nelson has always been supportive of my growth as a researcher. As we have been having challenges with developing the cell lines solely in house, I have been investigating ways to outsource challenges at specific stages in the research. Per Dr. Nelson’s order, I reached out to sales representatives from Vector Builder, a gene delivery company, even though I thought I would lack the experience necessary. Anyway, in these meetings, I was able to effectively communicate and provide the design for the plasmids, which are core parts for using CRISPR, that I wanted to order and get a quote (and even a first-time discount!) for having them make them. Although Dr. Nelson initially put me in a state of panic with this task, I trusted his judgement and tried my best to prepare, and it turned out better than each of us thought. In this way, I have been able to gain a better idea in the financial strategy of my professor for research and development, which I believe will be critical later in graduate school and my future career.

After we build all the cell lines, I, in conjunction with my new graduate student, will be using the PCR machine nonstop until all 60 targets are tested! After we do that, I’ll write a first author paper and present at BMES nationals. Then we’ll get into the next part of our top-secret plan to create a more holistic gene therapy.