Sarah Wellford, BS
Laboratory Technician

SW

Sarah Wellford is currently a laboratory technician in Dr. Brusko’s lab and processes samples that come in for HANDEL-I (Human Atlas of Neonatal Development and Early Life-Immunity) and nPOD (network for Pancreatic Organ Donors). She recently graduated from Virginia Tech with a B.S. in microbiology. At Virginia Tech, she did undergraduate research on Brucella abortus by seeing if cloned proteins from B. abortus in E. coli would make E. coli more pathogenic. She also did an internship with JDRF during undergrad in Washington, D.C. and got to see firsthand the impact of type 1 diabetes advocacy in action on Capitol Hill. Sarah became interested in type 1 diabetes research while interning with JDRF because research depends a lot on government funding to push new therapies forward, and also having type 1 diabetes herself is a big motivator for research in type 1 diabetes.


Publications

  • Shapiro MR, Yeh W, Longfield JR, Gallagher J, Infante CM, Wellford S, Posgai AL, Atkinson MA, Campbell-Thompson M, Lieberman SM, Serreze DV, Geurts AM, Chen Y, Brusko TM. CD226 Deletion Reduces Type 1 Diabetes in the NOD Mouse by Impairing Thymocyte Development and Peripheral T Cell Activation. Front Immunol. 2020 Jun. Submitted.