Muir Lab News
Summer 2025 Highlights
Muir Lab Hersheypark trip July 2025
The Muir Lab had a busy and rewarding summer! We kicked things off with Miles’ participation in the UD CHARM REU program, where he worked on “Designing Bioprinted Agar-Based Scaffolds for Investigating Bacterial Migration.” He wrapped up the program in August by presenting his summer research poster.
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The lab also celebrated an exciting milestone - receiving a Delaware Biosciences CAT pilot project to design devices for studying phage-bacteria infection dynamics under flow! Alongside this, we added a new Echo Revolve microscope to our lab, which will expand our imaging capabilities.
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In June, the lab joined fellow CBE groups at the 2nd annual CBE Field Day at Lums Pond, and in July we enjoyed a lab trip to Hersheypark. These events were a great chance to build community both within our lab and across the department.
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In July, Victoria returned to the Future Faculty Workshop in Soft Materials, this time as a faculty mentor, at the University of California, Irvine, coming full circle after attending as a mentee in 2022.
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This summer, our lab designed and installed an exhibit called "Can you move like a microbe?" at the Delaware Museum of Nature and Science (DelMNS). Learn more in our Education section here, which also includes links and files to make your own!
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Looking ahead to the fall, we’re excited to welcome the incoming cohort of CBE graduate students, as well as a new undergraduate member of the team, Ethan Bowen, who will work with Hannah and Lawrence on building a customizable bioprinter.
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We’re proud of the progress and growth this summer and are looking forward to everything the fall semester will bring!
Spring 2025 Highlights
Muir Lab at MASM 2025 at Johns Hopkins
Spring brought a bunch of exciting activity for the Muir Lab! Victoria shared our work at several regional and national meetings, including the Mid-Atlantic Synthetic Biology Network (MASBM) meeting at UD, the APS March Meeting in California, and the Mid-Atlantic Soft Matter Meeting (MASM) in May.
We celebrated Bala's graduation and the successful completion of his senior thesis, "Investigating E. coli Chemotaxis in Spatially Structured Porous Media." He is headed to Ardent, congrats Bala!
Miles was selected for the UD CHARM REU Program to continue summer research in the lab, and we’re excited to have him back!
A big congratulations to Lawrence for being awarded the Schipper Fellowship at UD, and to Ruth for being selected as a Laird Fellowship Finalist! We’re so proud of their accomplishments and excited to support their continued growth.
We also received our first grant through the Delaware Center for Musculoskeletal Research (DCMR) COBRE program, a Pilot Project exploring microbial living hydrogels for musculoskeletal tissue engineering.
We're heading into summer energized to keep building the lab, doing impactful science, and learning and growing together as a team!
Fall 2024 Highlights
Muir Lab group photo Winter 2025
The Muir Lab officially opened its doors in August 2024, and we hit the ground running! We welcomed our first cohort of talented undergraduates, Miles, Jackson, and Bala, who joined in September and quickly became integral members of the team.​
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In November, Victoria traveled to Copenhagen to give a seminar in the Biocomplexity Group at the Niels Bohr Institute, a highlight of the semester and an inspiring chance to connect across disciplines.​
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In December, we were thrilled to welcome our first-year Ph.D. students, Lawrence, Hannah, and Ruth, to the lab. Rounding out the year on a high note, Jackson was awarded a Winter Fellows award to continue research over Winter Session 2025.​
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We’re proud of how much we’ve grown this fall, and can’t wait to see what comes next!