Matthew joined Dr. Todd Brusko’s laboratory in the summer of 2019 as a first-year undergraduate student to study the autoimmune response that leads to the destruction of pancreatic beta cells in type 1 diabetes (T1D). After graduating from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology in 2022, Matthew was appointed as a Biological Scientist in the Brusko Lab at the UF Diabetes Institute to continue improving regulatory T cell (Treg) adoptive cellular therapy, developing deliverable biological treatment strategies, and evaluating the roles of T1D candidate genes in disease pathogenesis.
Brandon Dinner is a 3rd year Ph.D. Candidate at the Skaggs Graduate School of Chemical and Biological Sciences at Scripps Research in La Jolla, California. As a student in the laboratory of Dr. Luc Teyton, Brandon uses iPSC-derived islet-like organoids (iPSC-islets) to investigate mechanisms of b cell antigen presentation, the impact of inflammation on the neoantigen formation and antigen spreading in the context of T1D, and ultimately, the nature of iPSC-derived peptides that support the reactivation of memory CD4+ T cells in autologous iPSC-islet grafts.
Brandon is originally from South Florida and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree and earned Departmental Honors in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Miami while working in the laboratory of Dr. Arba Ager. Brandon is enthusiastic to present his work at his first nPOD conference and looks forward to engaging with and learning from its attendees. When not at the bench, Brandon will be found reading, mountain biking, or running.
Dr. Teifion Luckett is a bioinformatician and has recently joined the Islet Biology Exeter team, working under the supervision of Professor Sarah Richardson. He undertook his doctoral training at the University of Liverpool where he investigated immune-mediated drivers of pancreatic cancer metastasis.
Teifion’s current research uses bioimage and transcriptional analyses to investigate how the human pancreas matures post-birth and how this is affected in type 1 diabetes.
The primary focus of the Nakayama laboratory is to elucidate the mechanisms by which anti-islet autoimmunity is triggered to develop type 1 diabetes (T1D), from the view of the tri-molecular complex consisting of antigen, major histocompatibility complex (MHC), and T cell receptor (TCR).
Emerson is a senior undergraduate researcher in Dr. Todd Brusko’s lab, pursuing a degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, which she will complete in Spring 2025. Her research focuses on investigating the role of CD226 in CD8+ T cells and its implications for human type 1 diabetes.
Yu Shen is a 3rd-year PhD candidate in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University. In her research she applies machine learning and digital pathology techniques to study the microanatomy of the pancreas across endocrine and exocrine diseases. Specifically, her work in diabetes aims to reveal the heterogeneity of islet disfunction with the onset of type 1 diabetes through advanced, multi-plex 3D mapping, and to enable virtual staining of islet cells and insulitis from H&E.
Patricia Velado is a doctoral researcher at Helmholtz Munich (Germany), working under the supervision of Dr. Teresa Rodriguez-Calvo. Her research focuses on the role of insulin granule components in the pathogenesis of Type 1 Diabetes. She earned her degree in Biology from the University of A Coruna (Spain) in 2013 and completed the Erasmus Mundus Master Programme in Evolutionary Biology in 2015, receiving a double degree from Uppsala University (Sweden) and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Germany).
Before begining her doctoral studies, Patricia gained extensive experience as a research assistant, contributing to projects across diverse scientific fields. She joined the Type 1 Diabetes Pathology Research Unit in 2021 as a research assistant and lab coordinator. In 2022, she was awarded a doctoral position at the International Helmholtz Research School for Diabetes and Dr. Rodriguez-Calvo’s lab.
As an Assistant professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, I lead computational biology initiatives across multiple research programs at the Barbara Davis Diabetes Center, where I develop and implement advanced analytical approaches to understand the complexities of diabetes. Through long-term collaborations with experimental biologists, I bridge computational and biological insights to drive discoveries in beta cell biology and immune system dynamics in Type 1 Diabetes. My integrated approach spans multiple scales – from single-cell genomics to systems-level analyses – allowing me to explore connections across T cells, B cells, macrophages, and pancreatic islet endocrine cells. This cross-disciplinary perspective enables me to identify patterns and mechanisms that might be missed in isolated analyses.