Melissa Skala

Dr. Skala's lab at the Morgridge Institute for Research develops biomedical optical imaging technologies for cancer research, cell therapy, and immunology. Current projects focus on tumor immunology and immunotherapy, cell-level metabolic heterogeneity, and cell-cell interactions. Collaborative projects leverage these unique photonics-based tools for clinical problems, including quality control in T cell and stem cell therapies, designing personalized treatment plans for cancer patients, monitoring diseases in the eye, discovering new therapies for a range of diseases, and many others. Projects are highly diverse and range from translational research to hypothesis-driven questions to algorithm / instrumentation development.