Zerin Mahzabin Khan

About

Zerin received a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and a Bachelor of Applied Science in Chemical Engineering with an option in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Canada in 2018. As part of her undergraduate research in biochemistry, she had worked on developing DNA aptamers which could bind to human red blood cells at physiologic conditions under Dr. Maxim Berezovski's supervision. Zerin also studied microalgae-mediated synthesis of silver nanoparticles as part of her chemical engineering undergraduate research under Dr. Christopher Lan's supervision. 

Zerin is currently pursuing her doctoral studies in biomedical engineering at Virginia Tech as part of the SBES program, where her advisor is Dr. Scott Verbridge and her co-advisors are Dr. Eli Vlaisavljevich and Dr. Timothy Long. Zerin's research interests lie in the development of novel therapies for targeted treatment of cancer. To this end, Zerin’s PhD research focuses on developing novel biomaterial platforms with injectable hydrogels to capture and trap residual glioblastoma cells in the tumor resection cavity for subsequent ablation with external stimuli. 

In her spare time, Zerin loves creative writing, reading books, painting, watching movies and traveling with her family, as well as playing with her cat.