PhD Student, Division of Surgery
Email: jrd57@cam.ac.uk
Research Interests
Jenna is a PhD student in Surgery at the University of Cambridge. She is generously funded by the NIHR BTRU and the Department of Surgery at the Yale School of Medicine. Jenna began her training at Yale University with an accelerated, intensive Bachelor of Science degree in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology that she earned in May of 2017. She was awarded the Edgar J. Boell Prize for her undergraduate research defining nanoparticle kinetics in vivo using quantitative microscopy. Her current work is focused on optimizing therapeutic nanoparticle treatments in a normothermic kidney perfusion model. She has been presented with the unique opportunity of transferring surgical and nanoparticle technologies between both institutions of Cambridge and Yale to help bring this technique forward. After her PhD, she will return to the United States to pursue medical school with aspirations of ultimately becoming an academic surgeon.
Key Publications:
DiRito JR, Hosgood SA, Tietjen GT, Nicholson ML. The future of marginal kidney repair in the context of normothermic machine perfusion. Am J Transplant. 2018 Oct;18(10):2400-2408. doi: 10.1111/ajt.14963. Epub 2018 Jul 2. Review.
Tietjen GT, Hosgood SA, DiRito J, Cui J, Deep D, Song E, Kraehling JR, Piotrowski-Daspit AS, Kirkiles-Smith NC, Al-Lamki R, Thiru S, Bradley JA, Saeb-Parsy K, Bradley JR, Nicholson ML, Saltzman WM, Pober JS. Nanoparticle targeting to the endothelium during normothermic machine perfusion of human kidneys. Sci Transl Med. 2017 Nov 29;9(418). pii: eaam6764. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aam6764.
Tietjen GT, DiRito J, Pober JS, Saltzman WM. Quantitative microscopy-based measurements of circulating nanoparticle concentration using microliter blood volumes. Nanomedicine. 2017 Aug;13(6):1863-1867. doi: 10.1016/j.nano.2017.04.003. Epub 2017 Apr 13.
