Wayne 'Trey' Wortmann III Selected for Ogden Honors College Outstanding Thesis Award

One of our graduating seniors, Wayne ‘Trey’ Wortmann III was selected as a recipient of an Ogden Honors College Outstanding Thesis Award for his work entitled “Development of a Thiol-Acrylate-based Hydrogel for Tumor Spheroid Generation in a Microfluidic Device.” Trey’s honors thesis investigated the incorporation of a novel synthetic polymer into a microfluidic droplet trapping as a new method for the high-throughput generation of three dimensional cell cultures. This work has several implications as a new method for 3D culturing including understanding spatial limitations in drug efficacy in tumors as well as investigating cellular crosstalk between different types of cells in the tumor microenvironment. This project is in collaboration with Prof. John Pojman in the Department of Chemistry.