Projects
A mix of research from the bench and systems I've built on my own time.
Research & lab work
CAR-T & lentiviral vector development — Huntsman Cancer Institute
In the Michael Pulsipher Lab I design and produce lentiviral vectors for CAR-T cell engineering, optimizing titer and transduction efficiency for consistent manufacturing across dozens of constructs, through pre-clinical mouse-model testing. I authored and validated the SOPs covering production and analysis under BSL2+ EHS requirements, and established the flow cytometry panels and gating strategies used to characterize transduced T-cell products.
Described in a published protocol:
Utzman, P. H., Henderson, T., Elshafae, S., Deimundo Roura, C., & Pulsipher, M. (2025). A Generalizable Design and Cloning Strategy for CAR Lentiviral Plasmids. protocols.io. doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.yxmvm984bl3p/v1
PSM capstone — applied bioprocess research
My Professional Master's capstone at the University of Utah: applied bioprocess research conducted under faculty mentorship, with a manuscript currently in preparation. The project brought together bench work, applied statistics in R, and the regulatory and project-management framing from the PSM program.
Independent projects
BenchBuddy
An open-source lab-operations platform that replaces the spreadsheet sprawl of running a research lab; inventory, protocols, and records in one reproducible system. Originally started as a skill I made for Claude Code in late 2025; it has steadily evolved into a custom lab management suite. I conceived and specified it, but vibe-coded everything using AI coding agents. It's in active use in the Pulsipher Lab, with a live demo at demo.pulsipherlab.org.
The Henderson Index
A self-hostable prediction market I originally made for my extended family, that works well for any small group. It is intended as a way to stake credibility for an organization or small group of users, with several features in the hybrid-market design concept to make it functional for small user bases. My primary goal was to help people learn to use prediction markets, and use them productively. Entirely vibe-coded using Anthropic's Claude.