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Zach Manzer

 

Mentor: Susan Daniel

Education:

University of Buffalo – B.S. in Chemical Engineering, August 2013 – May 2018

Awards and Honors

  • NSF GRFP Honorable Mention 2018
  • UB CBE Academic Excellence Award, 2017 and 2018
  • Grace Capen Academic Award (UB, 2015)
  • James W. and Nancy A. McLernon Superior Student Scholarship (UB, 2016)
  • Best Poster Award (UB, 2016)

Research Experience:

Research and Development, INIFCON – Dr. Shawn Briglin | May 2016 – August 2016, May 2017 – August 2017

  • Designing and testing sample introduction and separation components of a next-generation portable gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GC-MS). Responsibilities included iterative design work, working in a clean-room, GC-MS analysis of VOC’s, and building test fixtures for automated experiments.

Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University at Buffalo – Dr. Chong Cheng | August 2016 – May 2017

  • Designing and synthesizing pH-sensitive biodegradable polymer backbones for selective delivery of anti-cancer medicines. Responsibilities included organic chemistry, polymer chemistry, column chromatography/TLC, NMR, and TEM.

Current Research Activities:

My research aims to create a bio-mimetic microfluidic device that can support proteins in their native cellular environment. Using patterned supported lipid bilayers, any number of transmembrane proteins can be supported in their natural environment where they can be closely studied using microscopy or used enzymatically. In this project, I hope to combine fundamental transport properties and biochemistry to engineer and fabricate a microfluidic platform that can be used to study fundamental lipid-protein interactions and then applied to synthesize key therapeutics such as modified lipids or post-translationally modified proteins, without relying on traditional cell culture methods.

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