Making Cells Work 2026

Rubayat is a Cell Therapy Application Specialist at Cytiva. Ph.D. in molecular biology and over 5 years in Cell Therapy based industry in both R&D and commercial world. Based in Dallas Texas.

Dr. Adjei is a Field Applications Scientist for Cytiva Nanomedicine. Prior to joining Cytiva, he was an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University (TAMU). At Cytiva, he uses his expertise to help academics and industry to develop the best drug delivery approach for their therapeutics with consideration for translatability and scalability.

Branimir Bugarija, PhD, is the CRISPR Field Application Scientist Manager at Integrated
DNA Technologies (IDT), where he leads a team of scientists supporting researchers in the
application of CRISPR genome editing and functional genomics technologies. He partners
with academic, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical organizations to accelerate research
and therapeutic development through strategic scientific collaboration, experimental design
guidance, and adoption of advanced genomic technologies.

Christine has been with Miltenyi for 6 years. Prior to that she worked in vaccine development against drugs of abuse at the University of Minnesota, where she got her Master's degree. She enjoys learning about all of the unique projects at the U and building relationships with passionate researchers.

Dr. Matthias Koenning is a Senior Field Applications Scientist at Quanterix Spatial, where he works closely with researchers to support the implementation of multiplexed immunohistochemistry in discovery and translation. In his role, he provides scientific guidance, technical expertise, and application support to help academic, clinical, and biopharmaceutical teams translate complex biological questions into actionable data.

Dr. Shalmica Jackson is the Associate Director of CGT Market Development at Lonza Biosciences. She earned her B.S. in Biological Sciences from Emporia State University and her Ph.D. in Molecular and Integrative Physiology from the University of Kansas Medical Center where she studied the effects of TCDD (dioxin) on ovarian cancer progression and metastasis. She completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Cell Biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center where her research focused on the role of telomerase in aging and cancer. Dr. Jackson spent 10 years in industry as a Senior R&D Scientist & Bioanalytical Scientist at Sigma Aldrich where she developed cell culture bioprocesses for the production of biologics and cell-based assays to determine the efficacy of protein therapeutics used in oncology and immunomodulation. She has spent the last 11 years in marketing with roles of increasing responsibility in biochemistry & IVD Product Management (MilliporeSigma), Drug Discovery and Development Segment Marketing (ATCC), and Biologics & CGT Strategic Marketing (Fujifilm). Currently, Dr. Jackson leads the Cell Discovery CGT Marketing team focusing on helping customers to advance their non-viral gene editing applications for cell therapy development.

Charlie earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where his research focused on colon cancer therapeutics, protein NMR methods, and peptide biophysics. He then worked in pharmaceutical drug discovery and development targeting cancer biology before transitioning to the analytical instrumentation industry. Today, he serves as a biopharma sales specialist supporting customers across the Midwest.