Pushing the Boundaries of Biomedical Innovation – Center Students Present at GWDD
The Center for Computational and Digital Health Innovation proudly celebrates several undergraduate researchers presenting their Graduation with Departmental Distinction (GWDD) posters in Biomedical Engineering. These students, mentored by Center faculty, are advancing the frontiers of digital health, from AI-driven drug discovery to synthetic biology and immune engineering.
Join us Thursday, April 24, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. in the Wilkinson Building Lobby to meet these talented students and learn more about how computation and innovation are reshaping healthcare.
Featured Projects
Venkata Srikar Kavirayuni
Mentor: Dr. Pranam Chatterjee
Venkata Srikar Kavirayuni explored machine learning approaches to identify molecules capable of driving therapeutic cell state reprogramming. He evaluated several generative model architectures that map cell state embeddings—derived from single-cell transcriptomics—to novel molecular structures. His most promising approach used a Metric Flow Matching (MFM) framework leveraging scGPT and MolT5 to learn geodesic trajectories between cell and molecule spaces. His work reveals the promise and complexity of multimodal AI in drug discovery and sets the stage for precision cellular therapeutics.
Shelby Cherkas
Mentor: Dr. John Hickey
Shelby Cherkas designed a high-throughput barcoding system to profile the functional diversity of CD8+ T cells—key players in cancer immunotherapy. She created a 30+ antibody-oligo barcode panel and used CODEX imaging for multiplexed analysis of stimulated T cell populations. Her computational de-barcoding work identified matched double barcoding as the most robust approach. This scalable strategy could accelerate the discovery of optimized immunotherapies for cancer and infectious diseases.
Christian Pile
Mentor: Dr. Cameron Kim
Christian Pile engineered probiotic yeast strains that autonomously sense and respond to gut inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). By transforming S. cerevisiae and S. boulardii to secrete interleukin-10 (IL-10), he showed successful anti-inflammatory cytokine production in simulated gut conditions. His work marks a key step toward safe, autonomous living therapeutics that modulate inflammation and reduce reliance on long-term immunosuppressants.
Kseniia Kholina
Mentor: Dr. Pranam Chatterjee
Kseniia Kholina developed MIMIC, a novel computational framework for generating synthetic peptides that mimic cytokine activity. Without relying on protein structure, MIMIC uses binding prediction and embedding-based guidance to generate peptides with high functional fidelity. Her IL-2 mimics displayed strong receptor binding and structural similarity to native cytokines. This innovative approach offers a new paradigm for therapeutic peptide design, particularly for immune modulation in cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Juliet Jiang
Mentor: Dr. Timothy Dunn
Investigated how machine learning can help uncover subtle, clinically relevant movement patterns in Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Juliet applied Auto-Regressive Hidden Markov Models (AR-HMMs) to deconstruct naturalistic human movement data—specifically gait and finger-tapping—into sequences of behavioral motifs, or “syllables.” Her findings showed that while gait patterns alone were not predictive, fine motor tasks such as left-hand finger tapping revealed distinctive movement signatures. This work highlights the potential of behavior-based diagnostics using interpretable models and illuminates the differences in large- vs. small-scale motor behaviors in neurodegenerative disease.
Don’t Miss the GWDD Poster Session!
These student-led projects reflect the core mission of our Center: to find, track, and treat disease using next-generation computational tools. Come see their work firsthand at the GWDD Symposium—April 24, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m., Wilkinson Lobby.