Puspa Raj Pandey

Cell Biology: >15 years of experience in mammalian cell cultures (primary and cancer cell lines) (2D and 3D), iPSC culture and characterization, iPSCs differentiation into different lineages and characterization, cell banking, designing of cell culture-based experiments including cell proliferation, cell death, gene reporter assay, cell migration, in vitro transformation assay, Cell transfection (chemical and electroporation), retro/lentivirus production, generation of stable cell lines by viral transduction., Biochemistry: DNA, RNA and protein isolation, purification and detection, chromatin immunoprecipitation, fluorescence in situ hybridization, flow cytometry (FACS), ELISA etc., Molecular biology: gene cloning, quantitative real-time PCR, site-directed mutagenesis, gene editing (CRISPR/Cas9) and RNAi., Microscopy: light, phase contrast and fluorescence microscopy, ZetaView nanoparticle tracking analysis (ZNTA)., In vivo animal experiments: different types of injections, monitoring of tumor growth, tissue collection, processing, and analysis, immunohisto/cytochemistry, cell lines generation from tumors and bioluminescence imaging of animals., Cell Process Development: Stirred tank bioreactors, Orbital shaken bioreactors, seed train expansion, cryopreservation, nutrients and metabolites analysis using FLEX2 and CedexBio HT, protein quantitation and binding assays using BLI technologies (OCTET and GatorBIo Prime, Amino acid analysis using Rebel 908 device (learning), cell concentration using kSEP400 counterflow centrifugation and Bios16 large scale centrifuge etc., Proficient in MS office, Adobe Illustrator, EndNote, Image J and Graph Pad Prism (for statistical analysis).

• 3-days Project Management Essentials Training workshop from S2 Insights
• Generating the neural lineage from iPSCs, 4-day workshop from BioTrac
• Hepatocytes derived from human iPSCs, 4-day workshop form BioTrac
• 1 day training on Error Prevention System (EPS), Lonza
• CGMP quality training, Lonza
• High Performance Team (HPT) workshops, Lonza
• Redox Biology (RB) course work, NIH
• Writing and publishing a scientific paper workshop, NIH
• Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) course, NIH
• Workplace dynamics lecture series, NIH
• Translational Research in Clinical Oncology (TRACO) course work, NIH
• 2-day Management Boot camp, NIH

• Over 16 years of life science research experience (Cell and Stem Cell Biology, Cancer Biology and Cell Process Development) in both academia and industry.
• Generated high-quality peer-reviewed publications (4 original articles, 2 review articles as a first author and 10 original articles as co-author) in high impact journals.
• Presented 50 Posters and 24 oral presentations in national and international conferences.
• Presented in a webinar (Bioinsights) and Innovation show case in ISSCR 2019.
• Generated >50 plasmid constructs and engineered cell lines to study oncogenic signaling in Breast cancer and Rhabdomyosarcoma.
• Expert in primary cell cultures, cancer and stem cells cultures (both 2D and 3D), transfections and cell-based assays.
• Developed 3D culture platform using spinner flasks and stirred tank bioreactor for iPSCs expansion and differentiation.
• Expert in Somatic cells reprogramming to generate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from fibroblasts, PBMNCS, Cord blood cells and T cells and their characterization, differentiation into multiple cell types (tri-lineage differentiation) and maintenance.
• MABs production in shake flasks and bioreactors using stable cell lines and transient transfection (electroporation)
• Experienced in statistical analysis of data.

• Senior Scientist (BioProcess Development), Dec 2021- to date, MaxCyte Inc., Rockville, MD
• Scientist II (Cell Process Development), Jan 2021- Dec 2021, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Frederick, MD
• Scientist (Cell therapy R&D), Feb 2018- Jan 2021, Cell Therapy Research and Development (CT R&D), Lonza Inc., Rockville, MD
• Industry Postdoc Intern, Mar 2017- Feb 2018, Cell Therapy Research and Development (CT R&D), Lonza Inc., Walkersville, MD
• Postdoctoral Fellow, July 2012- Feb 2017, National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD
• Graduate Research Assistant/PhD candidate, Aug 2007- May 2012, Department of Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Cell Biology, Southern Illinois University, Springfield, IL

Featured in NCI-Tweeter as an outstanding postdoc, 2016 Invited for oral presentation in different conferences FARE (Fellows Award for Research Excellence) 2016 Travel award for AACR 103th Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL,2012