Jina Ko, PhD
Assistant Professor of Clinical Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Assistant Professor of Bioengineering
University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science
Contact InformationPerelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine
Stellar-Chance Laboratories, Room 605C
422 Curie Boulevard
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Email: Jina.Ko@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Specialty Division
Cancer and Immunobiology, Diagnostic Innovation
Research Expertise
Medical Diagnostics, Droplet Microfludiics, Biomarker Discovery, Microfabrication
Itmat Expertise
Next Generation Tools for Medical Diagnostic
Single Extracellular Vesicle Analysis
Biomarker Discovery for Neurological Disorders
Education
BS Rice University, 2013
PhD University of Pennsylvania, 2018
Postgraduate Training
Schmidt Science Postdoctoral Fellow, Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School, 2018-20
Instructor/NIH NCI K99/R00 Fellow, Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School, 2021-22
Awards and Honors
President’s Honor Roll, Rice University, 2010
Pi Delta Phi: National French Honor Society, 2011
Research Scholarship, École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de St-Étienne, 2012
Singh Center for Nanotechnology Annual User Meeting, 1st Prize, University of Pennsylvania, 2015
Bioengineering Graduate Group Symposium, 3rd Prize,
University of Pennsylvania, 2016
Lab on a Chip Widmer Award Winner, MicroTAS, 2017
Keystone Symposia Future of Science Fund Scholarship, 2018
Schmidt Science Fellows, in Partnership with the Rhodes Trust, 2018
Sol Pollack Award (Best thesis of the year), University of Pennsylvania, 2018
MicroTAS 2019 Travel Grant, 2019
ISEV2020 Young Investigator Scholarship, 2020
Rising Stars in Engineering in Health at Columbia University, 2020
NIH K99/R00 NCI Pathway to Independence Award (Impact score: 10), 2021-2026
Presidents Award for Excellence at CYTO, 2022
NIH Director's New Innovator Award (DP2), 2023
KBMES Young Investigator Award, 2024
NSF CAREER Award, 2025
Memberships and Professional Organizations
National Institute of Health, NIH Small Business: Cell and Molecular Biology Panel, ZRG1 MCST-G (15), Reviewer, 2023
National Institute of Health, NCI Virtual Review for SEP-7: NCI Clinical and Translational R21 and Omnibus R03, Reviewer, 2023
National Institute of Health, SEP-6: NCI Clinical and Translational R21 and Omnibus R03, Reviewer
National Institute of Health, NIGMS' SBIR/STTR Grant Program, ZGM1 BBC-W (SB), Reviewer
University of Pennsylvania, T32 Mentor, 2023-present
-------- Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics Training Program (SBMB), 2023-present
-------- Gastrointestinal Sciences Program, 2025-present
-------- Cellular Engineering Program, 2025-present
University of Pennsylvania, BMES Faculty Advisor, 2024-present
University of Pennsylvania, Clinical Neurosciences Training Program (CNST), Advisory Board, 2024-present
Web Links
Ko Lab: https://www.jinakolab.org/
This is my postdoctoral fellowship website that introduces my research with some videos
Selected Publications
Droplet Squeeze Microfluidic Platform for Generating Extracellular Vesicle Hybrids for Drug Delivery
Chintapula U, Liu S, Castillo AFD, Lim J, Roh Y, Mageswaran SK, Zhang X, Morales RT, Sellmyer MA, Chang YW, Xu X, Ko J. Small 21(37):e2503807, Sep 2025. doi: 10.1002/smll.202503807. Epub 2025 Aug 7. PMID: 40772393.
Vertically Aligned Nanowires for Longitudinal Intracellular Sampling
Reynolds DE, Roh YH, Chintapula U, Huynh E, Vallapureddy P, Tran HH, Lee D, Allen MG, Xu X, Ko J. ACS Nano 19(13):13073-13083, Apr 2025. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.4c18297. Epub 2025 Mar 27. PMID: 40146010.
Enhancing Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-Cell Generation via Microfluidic Mechanoporation and Lipid Nanoparticles
Lim J, Oh D, Cheng M, Chintapula U, Liu S, Reynolds D, Zhang X, Zhou Y, Xu X, Ko J. Small 21(17):e2410975, Apr 2025. doi: 10.1002/smll.202410975. Epub 2025 Mar 19. PMID: 40103509; PMCID: PMC12036559.
Temporal and Spatial Omic Technologies for 4D Profiling
Reynolds DE, Roh YH, Oh D, Vallapureddy P, Fan R, Ko J. Nat Methods 22(7):1408-1419, Jul 2025. doi: 10.1038/s41592-025-02683-6. Epub 2025 Apr 22. PMID: 40263585.
Squeezable Hydrogel Microparticles for Single Extracellular Vesicle Protein Profiling
Roh YH, Morales RT, Huynh E, Chintapula U, Reynolds DE, Agosto-Nieves RJ, Oh D, Seiner AJ, Lim J, Rodell CB, Ko J. Small 21(1):e2407809, Jan 2025. doi: 10.1002/smll.202407809. Epub 2024 Oct 29. PMID: 39468876; PMCID: PMC11707585.
Optimizing cell therapy by sorting cells with high extracellular vesicle secretion
Koo D, Cheng X, Udani S, Baghdasarian S, Zhu D, Li J, Hall B, Tsubamoto N, Hu S, Ko J, Cheng K, Di Carlo D. Nat Commun 15(1):4870, Jun 2024. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-49123-1. PMID: 38849333; PMCID: PMC11161503.
A Versatile Microchannel Array Device for Portable and Parallel Droplet Generation
Tang Z, Reynolds DE, Lv C, Zhang D, Ko J, Wang Y. Small Sci 4(5):2400005, Mar 2024. doi: 10.1002/smsc.202400005. PMID: 40213571; PMCID: PMC11935260.
Anti-cancer bioactivity of sweet basil leaf derived extracellular vesicles on pancreatic cancer cells
Chintapula U, Oh D, Perez C, Davis S, Ko J. J Extracell Biol 3(2):e142, Feb 2024. doi: 10.1002/jex2.142. PMID: 38939903; PMCID: PMC11080924.
Live Organoid Cyclic Imaging
Reynolds DE, Sun Y, Wang X, Vallapureddy P, Lim J, Pan M, Fernandez Del Castillo A, Carlson JCT, Sellmyer MA, Nasrallah M, Binder Z, O'Rourke DM, Ming GL, Song H, Ko J. Adv Sci (Weinh) 11(14):e2309289, Apr 2024. doi: 10.1002/advs.202309289. Epub 2024 Feb 7. PMID: 38326078; PMCID: PMC11005682.
Droplet and Digital Microfluidics: Ideation to Implementation.
Reynolds DE, Lim J, Roh Y, Chintapula U, Morales RT, Oh D, Ko J. Elsevier, 2024
