Erica Pratt's doctoral work in Dr. Brian Kirby's lab focused on investigating circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the peripheral blood system of patients with solid tumors and how these cells can be used as a noninvasive tumor surrogate, and as prognostic biomarkers for survival in advanced disease. She co-designed the geometrically enhanced differential immunocapture (GEDI) platform for size- and antigen-based isolation of CTCs from whole blood samples.
After graduating, Erica was a postdoc at the University of Texas at MD Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Minnesota. She then landed an assistant professorship at Boston University, where she leads an engineering-driven cancer research laboratory.
The Pratt Group employs a multi-pronged approach combining engineering with multi-omics strategies to design blood-based assays for cancer diagnosis and monitoring. The long-term goal of her work is to enable sensitive and multiplexable profiling of both genomic and functional biomarkers with a simple blood draw. The ability to noninvasively and quantitatively measure cancer-specific biomarkers would enable real-time longitudinal monitoring of patients at every stage of treatment.
Ph.D. student Lainie Eisner was drawn to Cornell specifically for its relationship with Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. Read more about Investigating degenerative tendon disease and repair
Alex Cruz is a doctoral student in biomedical engineering from New Jersey. He studies tissue engineering approaches to calcific aortic valve disease under the guidance of Jonathan Butcher at Cornell. Read more about Using tissue engineering approaches to better understand cardiovascular disease
This collection of stories, published in celebration of Earth Day and Sustainability Month at Cornell, highlights recent examples of faculty and students engaged in developing tangible, groundbreaking solutions to save the planet. Read more about Cornell Engineering: Committed to a better, more sustainable Earth
