Melissa C. Skala

Autofluorescence lifetime imaging resolves cell heterogeneity within peripheral blood mononuclear cells

This paper demonstrates that autofluorescence lifetime imaging can identify immune cell subsets and activation states in PBMCs with high accuracy, enabling label-free metabolic analysis.

Segmentation-guided photon pooling enables robust single cell analysis and fast fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy

This paper introduces a photon pooling technique for faster single-cell FLIM analysis without machine learning, achieving single-cell metabolic data every second and 15x faster mosaic acquisition.

FLIM Playground: An interactive, end-to-end graphical user interface for analyzing single-cell fluorescence lifetime data

FLIM Playground provides an interactive, open-source platform for analyzing single-cell fluorescence lifetime data, offering unified workflows and real-time analysis tools validated on cancer cell line datasets.

Atovaquone-induced therapeutic rewiring of melanoma metabolism

This study shows atovaquone inhibits OXPHOS and glycolysis in melanoma, causing metabolic reprogramming, oxidative stress, and reduced tumor growth in vitro and in vivo.

Autofluorescence imaging reveals the impact of cryopreservation on T cell metabolism and activation response

This study uses optical metabolic imaging to assess how cryopreservation affects T cell metabolism and activation, finding delayed responses and identifying metabolically-fit cells linked to viability.

An automated image analysis pipeline for wide-field optical redox imaging of patient-derived cancer organoids

The paper develops an automated image analysis pipeline for wide-field optical redox imaging of patient-derived cancer organoids, achieving high accuracy and significantly faster processing than manual methods.

Divergent role of CD8 T cells with distinct metabolic phenotypes during curative radio-immunotherapy in hot versus cold tumors

This study examines how CD8 T cells with different metabolic profiles contribute to tumor cure in hot versus cold murine tumors using radio-immunotherapy.

Label free metabolic imaging to enhance the efficacy of Chimeric Antigen Receptor T cell therapy

Autofluorescence imaging informs manufacturing conditions that enhance yield and metabolic fitness of CAR T cells for neuroblastoma.

Wide-field optical redox imaging with leading-edge detection for assessment of patient-derived cancer organoids

This study uses wide-field optical redox imaging to assess treatment response and heterogeneity in colorectal cancer organoids, showing improved sensitivity and accuracy compared to existing methods.

Single cell autofluorescence imaging reveals immediate metabolic shifts of neutrophils with activation across biological systems

This study uses optical metabolic imaging to show neutrophils rapidly shift to a reduced redox state upon activation, with heterogeneous responses across cells and donors.

Mitochondrial metabolism is rapidly re-activated in mature neutrophils to support stimulation-induced response

This study shows that mature neutrophils can rapidly reactivate mitochondrial metabolism in response to stimuli, impacting their function and suggesting therapeutic potential for mitochondrial pyruvate carrier inhibitors.

Human Plasma-Like Medium Promotes Maturation of Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Cardiomyocytes

This paper shows that Human Plasma-Like Medium (HPLM) improves the maturation of human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes compared to conventional media.

Cellpose as a reliable method for single-cell segmentation of autofluorescence microscopy images

This paper validates Cellpose as a reliable method for segmenting single cells in autofluorescence microscopy images, showing high accuracy compared to manual segmentation.

GATA1-deficient human pluripotent stem cells generate neutrophils with improved antifungal immunity that is mediated by the integrin CD18

This study shows that GATA1-deficient iPSC-derived neutrophils have enhanced antifungal activity against Aspergillus fumigatus, mediated by CD18 integrin.

Autofluorescence lifetime flow cytometry with time-correlated single photon counting

This paper introduces a TCSPC-based flow cytometer for real-time single-cell autofluorescence lifetime analysis, demonstrating viability and sensitivity to metabolic changes in various cell types.

Autofluorescence is a biomarker of neural stem cell activation state

The paper uses autofluorescence imaging to identify and track neural stem cell activation states in vitro and in vivo, linking it to transcriptional features and cell behavior.

Metabolic priming of GD2 TRAC-CAR T cells during manufacturing promotes memory phenotypes while enhancing persistence

This study shows that metabolic priming during CAR T cell manufacturing reduces glycolysis and enhances memory phenotypes, improving in vivo persistence against GD2+ tumors.

Classifying T cell activity in autofluorescence intensity images with convolutional neural networks

The paper uses convolutional neural networks to classify T cell activity from autofluorescence intensity images and shows that pre-trained models outperform traditional methods.