Peter V
- Research Program Mentor

PhD candidate at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill (UNC Chapel Hill)

Expertise

drug delivery, synthetic biology, genetic engineering, protein engineering, the human microbiome

Bio

Hi, I'm Peter and I am a researcher at UNC! Here, I study ways in which we can engineer microbiomes. These intricate microbial ecosystems play a vital role in human health and disease, agriculture, and the environment; yet we largely lack the tools to manipulate these communities with any real nuance or precision. My work is focused on developing vectors for targeting these microbial consortia and researching ways of manipulating them to produce beneficial outputs. Outside of the lab, I enjoy staying active and being outdoors. I have a deep love for our oceans and I try to surf or sail any chance I get. I also enjoy scuba diving, fishing, skiing, gardening, playing soccer, and cooking.

Project ideas

Project ideas are meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

A deep dive in drug delivery.

In recent decades, the scientific community has developed an abundance of tools for enacting changes with greater and greater precision in biological systems. As this precision has become further refined, however, a fundamental challenge in creating these changes has arisen: how can we deliver these agents to the precise location where they can exert the desired function? If you have ever found it interesting that chemotherapeutics can preferentially target cancer cells, how gene therapies only edit the cells and genetic loci we want, or how our own immune cells can be engineered to fight malignancies they previously couldn't see, this project offers the opportunity to understands these topics in greater detail while exploring the underlying principles that guide drug design & formulation. Join me and we can explore some of the cutting edge ways next generation therapeutics will enable more potent therapeutic outcomes while minimizing side effects!

Coding skills

python, pyrosetta

Teaching experience

At UNC I help lead the laboratory phase of our Young Innovators Program (YIP), an immersive summer internship that gives high school students across North Carolina a chance to work directly in research labs at UNC. Through YIP, I have had led dozens of our interns through our intensive lab skills training module. In addition to this, I worked one-on-one with students over the course of the YIP program, acting as their direct mentor as they work on their own independent research projects and in helping them compile a final research seminar, which they give to an audience of UNC faculty, researchers, and industry professionals.