aek_zander_galluppi_headshot_2
Esser-Kahn Group

Zander Galluppi

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 dull heartache and existential longing from not doing enough 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, Dominican University, This Moment Productions, and Underscore Theatre Company as part of their Chicago Musical Theatre Festival.  Some of his favorite credits include Antipholus of Ephesus in The Comedy of Errors, Professor Plum in Clue: Stay at Home, Longaville in Love's Labour's Lost: A New Musical, and Smee in Peter and the Starcatcher.

Zander is also a Cancer.

BS
Biophysics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2016)

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.

Receptor–Ligand Kinetics Influence the Mechanism of Action of Covalently Linked TLR Ligands

Kimani FW, Ajit J, Galluppi A, Manna S, Howitz WJ, Tang S, Esser-Kahn AP. ACS Chem. Biol. 2021, 16, 2, 380–388. Feb 1, 2021. doi: 10.1021/acschembio.0c00924