SLAS Announces $100,000 Graduate Education Fellowship Grant Awarded to Samuel G. Berryman of the University of British Columbia

Oak Brook, IL (March 15, 2023) – The Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS) is pleased to announce Samuel G. Berryman, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC, Canada), as the 2023 SLAS Graduate Education Fellowship Grant recipient.

“I feel extremely grateful and enthusiastic to have been chosen as the recipient of the SLAS fellowship,” says Berryman. “This fellowship award is certainly one of those moments that inspires me to return to the lab with even greater motivation and enthusiasm.”

The SLAS grant will support Berryman’s research in developing and designing technologies for studying Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells, a cell type used for a novel form of cancer therapy. For this project, he’s constructed his research methodology to build upon his prior work involving machine learning to determine cell phenotypes. “Together, my research will provide clues for developing more potent CAR-T cells that could be used at a lower dosage to improve the efficacy and accessibility of this therapy.”

Berryman is a driven individual who intends to utilize the vast knowledge base available in SLAS membership to propel his research and career development forward. “The SLAS fellowship will support the advancement of my research by providing me with the financial, intellectual, and professional resources needed to pursue my research goals and help develop my career as a researcher,” Berryman adds. “I believe this will offer an excellent opportunity for me to establish connections with peers in the community, which could lead to new collaborations and facilitate my entry into the industry after completing my doctoral program.”

Judging criteria for the SLAS Graduate Education Fellowship Grant is based on the applicability of the student researcher’s work to laboratory automation and screening, originality and creativity of the scientific approach, quality of the science, presentation of the research objectives, and the quality and capability of the institution and its educational program to support the grant.

The SLAS Grant Program was introduced in 2015 to facilitate educational opportunities for outstanding students pursuing graduate degrees related to quantitative biosciences and/or life sciences R&D. This program helps to realize a fundamental tenet of SLAS’s mission: to advance the fields of laboratory science and technology by nurturing the next generation of professional scientists.

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SLAS (Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening) is an international professional society of academic, industry and government life sciences researchers and the developers and providers of laboratory automation technology. The SLAS mission is to bring together researchers in academia, industry and government to advance life sciences discovery and technology via education, knowledge exchange and global community building.

SLAS publishes two peer-reviewed and MEDLINE-indexed scientific journals, SLAS Discovery and SLAS Technology. For more information about SLAS and its journals, visit www.slas.org/journals.

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