Ankrum wins prize at NIH’s Follow that Cell Challenge

James Ankrum, a 2013 Ph.D. alumnus from the Medical Engineering and Medical Physics, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology, and MIT former Hugh Hampton Young Fellow, submitted research for a self-destructing cellular barcode, a versatile tool for single cell analysis, and took home one of the top prizes at the The National Institutes of Health: Follow that Cell Challenge (Phase 1). Of critical importance for studying single cell activity is the ability to identify and track a single cell over time. This solution proposes a method for uniquely labeling thousands of single cells. The proposed label lasts for several weeks, is transferred to cell progeny, and self-destructs when the cell dies. The technique would be useful for determining stem cell fate and lineage. Read the full entry at National Institutes of Health.