April’s Featured Researcher of the Month is no stranger to excelling in the laboratory. This month’s honor goes to Amy Boisvert, a research assistant in iCubed’s Cell Mediated Immunity Core laboratory. Amy is a senior at the University of Rhode Island and is scheduled to graduate this summer with a degree in cell and molecular biology with a minor in biology.

iCubed came to know Amy during January’s Neglected and Emerging Infectious Diseases Workshop held in Providence. The workshop included intensive, hands-on immunoinformatics and vaccinology core curriculum as well as bench-based immunology training, including HLA binding and T cell assays. Amy successfully completed the workshop and stood out for her skill in laboratory as well as her upbeat attitude and enthusiam.

Amy is currently assisting on multiple projects including the H. pylori Pilot Project where she performs peptide binding assays for epitope validation. She also dedicates time to the Influenza H7N9 Project testing in vitro response to predicted T cell epitopes via ELISpot assays and flow cytometry.  Lastly, for the National Pork Board PigVax Project, Amy optimizes porcine PBMC isolation and cell culture conditions for T cell epitope validation using ELISpot.

Prior to joining iCubed, Amy spent the past three years working for the Department of Natural Resource Science as the assistant to Specialist Debra Bourassa at URI’s Coastal Institute on the Kingston campus.  She also participated in the Bermuda Biodiversity Project run by the Lane Lab of the Center for Biotech and Life Sciences. 

In the future, Amy hopes to continue assisting members of the TRIAD team wherever her help is needed.