News: IMES community profile: Abigail Dzordzorme

Abigail Dzordzorme, HST MEMP PhD student, hopes that her research on infectious diseases will help reduce inequities in clinical diagnostics. 

Mindy Blodgett | IMES

Abigail Dzordzorme is an Harvard-MIT program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST) Medical Engineering Medical Physics (MEMP) PhD student who studied bioengineering and Science, Technology, and Society (STS) as an undergrad at MIT, focusing on technology development for infectious disease applications. She grew up near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with parents who immigrated from Ghana. Growing up as a first-generation Ghanaian-American gave her an early awareness of gaps in healthcare that have an impact on different communities, especially in the context of infectious diseases. As an undergrad—combining her passion for medicine and engineering—she worked on layered nanoparticles for drug delivery to biofilms and engineered protein nanoparticles for a pan-coronavirus vaccine.

Why did you choose the HST program?

HST stood out to me because of its combined emphasis on engineering and medicine. The HST program gave me a way to get close to medicine and understand clinical problems from the inside without leaving engineering behind. Additionally, this program has given me unparalleled access to a passionate community of current students, faculty, and alumni who share my goal of improving clinical outcomes through engineering.

What do you wish you’d known, before you became a graduate student, and before you joined HST?

Before joining grad school, I wish I realized the best solution is usually the simplest one. There is a tendency in research to equate complexity with rigor, but some of the most impactful ideas in science and engineering are also the most straightforward. I am still working on unlearning the impulse to overcomplicate!

Your research focuses on developing ultra-sensitive protein detection platforms for use in clinical diagnostics, with a focus on infectious diseases. Can you tell us more about this research, and what you hope to accomplish?

There are significant inequalities in patient outcomes from infectious diseases globally, which are in part due to a lack of accessible diagnostics. Many clinically important proteins, such as early infection biomarkers, circulate in the blood at concentrations so low that standard detection methods miss them. Our lab specializes in ultrasensitive detection platforms that are sensitive enough to reliably find these signals in blood, saliva, and urine. 

My research interest is focused on adapting these platforms for use in low-resource settings to enable easier and earlier diagnosis of infectious diseases. My current project is developing a field-deployable, ultra-sensitive diagnostic workflow to predict HIV viral rebound from patient plasma samples. This will result in a companion diagnostic that enables clinicians to make treatment decisions during treatment interruption, such as in clinical trials and settings with inconsistent access to medication. I hope to further expand this field-deployable platform into a modular, low-cost diagnostic platform that actually reaches patients in low-resource settings. 

Which lab are you a part of, and why did you choose this particular lab?

I’m in the Walt Lab for Advanced Diagnostics at the Wyss Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School. I chose this lab because I wanted to be in an environment where translation is a forethought in development and success is evaluated against clinical metrics. Prof. David Walt is a pioneer in molecular diagnostics and translating research into products, many of which are currently being used in the clinic today.  Our lab is an interdisciplinary team of clinicians, engineers, and scientists that gives me access to a wide variety of expertise and perspectives. Conversations with my lab constantly challenge me to think about the technologies I work on across scientific, clinical, and translational dimensions at every stage of development. 

What are your professional goals?

My goal is to build a career developing and deploying diagnostics that address gaps in health equity. Diagnostics are often the first point of contact for a patient on the way to treatment, and their limitations create the boundaries of what medicine can do. I hope to pursue opportunities that allow me to expand those boundaries, particularly in underserved settings. Professionally, I am focused on developing the technical depth and translational experience during my PhD that will position me to lead that kind of work at a meaningful scale. My aim is to contribute to the science of next-generation diagnostics and be a part of the pipeline that moves those technologies from the bench to the people who need them most. 

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I am an avid movie theater attendee! I love watching films anywhere, but I have a strong preference for the deliberateness of the movie theater experience. You can also usually find me listening to music, reading fiction, or talking about my cats. 

What is on your bucket list? 

I really enjoy learning about different cultures, so one of my bucket list items is to travel to (at least) 50 countries. Beyond travel, I would love to see a total solar eclipse and to learn to speak Ewe, a Ghanaian language.

What is the most fun job you’ve ever had?

In high school, I was a student leader at a local arboretum. I took on roles ranging from trail maintenance to managing the gift shop and running events. During the summers, the arboretum hosted a science summer camp for elementary and middle school students. Working as a counselor to organize activities and teach science to curious, energetic kids in our outdoor classrooms was definitely the most fun job I’ve had.

Favorite song? 

“Greatest Love of All” by Whitney Houston

What’s your favorite video? 

I always come back to this live performance of No Woman, No Cry by Bob Marley 

What do you believe is an underrated invention or technology? 

The smallpox vaccine. The vaccine allowed smallpox to become the only human infectious disease ever fully eradicated. Beyond smallpox, it established the entire concept of vaccination and laid the groundwork for every immunization campaign that followed, inexorably changing the course of public health.