Achievement

With his lab group and advisors in Biomedical Engineering, Rutgers IGERT Trainee Jeff Barminko was able to assist in optimizing a transient transfection system for sorting differentiating murine embryonic stem cells. This is a major achievement as genetically altering stem cells without permanent gene changes is a critical safety challenge that needs to be overcome prior to clinical adaptation. This resulted in the publication where this work was profiled as a lead story: Wallenstein EJ, Barminko J, Schloss RS, Yarmush ML. Transient gene delivery for functional enrichment of differentiating embryonic stem cells. Biotechnology and bioengineering, 2008 Dec 1;101(5):859-72.