Tanya Kozlik, MS

I joined the Zamora lab in October 2020 while completing my master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee which I finished in December 2021. My thesis was focused on the role of regulatory T (Treg) cells in the humoral immune response to the causative agent of Lyme disease, Borrelia burgdorferi. In this research I utilized the ‘depletion of regulatory T cell,’ or DEREG, mouse model which allows for the selective depletion of Treg cells via a low dose administration of diphtheria toxin. Using this model, I depleted Treg cells and assessed the effect of Treg cell depletion on pathological changes in the tibiotarsal joints as well as serum IgG antibody titers. In the Zamora lab, I’ve been involved in helping spearhead novel studies aimed at developing cell-based therapies for cancer and in establishing single cell-based workflows on a recently acquired Berkeley Lights Lightning Platform. Recently, I’ve been working on projects aimed at validating CAR-T cell and T cell receptor (TCR)-T cell therapies against single target cells on the Lightning. I am also involved in ongoing studies testing whether recurrent cancer mutations serve as immunogenic targets for T cells and determining whether off-the-shelf TCR-T cell therapies can be engineered to target these mutations with greater specificity.