Zander Galluppi
Graduate Student
About Zander
As a proper midwestern boy hailing from St. Louis, Missouri, Zander has cavorted around the beautiful heart of the US pursuing science for most of his life. He completed his BS in biophysics at the University of Michigan before working as a technician in Dave Holtzman's neurology lab at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Since 2017, Zander has been a member of the Committee on Immunology at UChicago. He decided to join the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the Esser-Kahn Group after experiencing the existential longing of missing quantitative and biophysical sciences in his first year.
Outside of the lab, Zander is a Chicago area actor, and he often shamelessly demeans himself on stage for the sake of ART. He has been in over fifteen UChicago productions, and his Chicago regional credits include work with Mercury Theatre Chicago, the Beverly Arts Center, This Moment Productions, Underscore Theatre Company, and with Dominican University as a professional guest artist.
Zander is also a Cancer.
Education
BS, Biophysics, University of Michigan Ann Arbor (2016)
Favorite Quote
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing."
- Macbeth, Act V, scene v
Zander's Research
Zander uses lattice light sheet microscopy to probe Toll-like receptor dynamics in living cells while they are responding to different stimuli. By assaying small- and fast-scale biophysical changes in receptor behavior, Zander hopes to uncover key mechanistic details about the innate immune response that have been unable to be appreciated in fixed cell imaging contexts. These findings would help deepen understanding about Toll-like receptor signaling systems and provide a basis for more rational adjuvant design that takes advantage of optimal receptor interaction.