Alexandra Schonnesen, PhD

Alexandra Schonnesen, PhD has a wealth of experience in translational biology, biomarker discovery, and microfluidic models. From 2013 to 2016, they were an Undergraduate Researcher at the University of Minnesota, where they developed an in vitro model of hematopoietic stem cell homing and assisted in the design and construction of models of extravasation and pulmonary fibrosis. From 2016 to 2021, they were a Graduate Research Assistant at the Cockrell School of Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, where they developed and applied multi-omic single-cell analyses to understand the role of antigen-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in melanoma and basal cell carcinoma. Alexandra also validated these methods through transduction (lentivirus) of TCRs on primary human T cells and subsequent functional analyses (flow cytometry, ELISA, cytotoxicity assays). Since 2021, they have been a Research Scientist, Translational Biology at Abintus Bio, Inc., where they are developing murine pharmacology models for in vivo gene therapy to advance MOA understanding for oncology indications, and analyzing CAR-T and CAR-NK cells in vitro and ex vivo for anti-tumor activity and biomarker development. In 2022, they will be a Translational Biomarker Discovery Scientist at Janux Therapeutics.

Alexandra Schonnesen earned a Bachelor of Biomedical Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 2016. Alexandra then went on to pursue a Master's of Engineering in Biomedical Engineering from the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, which they completed in 2018. Finally, Alexandra earned their Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Biomedical/Medical Engineering from the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin in 2021.