Recent Events and Presentations
Conferences
Beacon User Group Meeting (San Diego, Dec 2025)
Our director, Dr Kate Malecek, presented at the Beacon User Group Meeting in 2025 hosted by Bruker Cellular Analysis. She spoke about how the Beacon Center at Caltech have been utilising the platform for B-cell antibody discovery in Llamas, Rabbits, and Mice and future projects involving T-cell workflows.
Beacon World Tour (Caltech, June 2024)
The Beacon World Tour was an event held at Caltech facilitated by Beacon proprietor 'Bruker Cellular Analysis', designed to inform potential users about the vast possibilities of experiments that the Beacon can do.
Featured talks included: Discover how Beacon can supercharge your CAR and TCR Discovery, T Cell Profiling, and Antibody Discovery (including affinity assays) even for challenging targets!
"Building Broader B Cell Diversity for Better Monoclonal Antibody Discovery & Rapid Identification of Antibodies Against Emerging Viruses" by Dr. Kate Malecek, Director of Beacon Center for Single Cell Biology at Caltech
"Rapid Identification of Antibodies Against Emerging Viruses" by Dr. Kate Hastie, La Jolla Institute for Immunology
"Harnessing the Power of Beacon Platform for Antibody Discovery, T cell function, and Immune Monitoring" by Dr. Dennis May Scientific Consultant, Bruker Cellular Analysis
Presentations
2024 Caltech BBE Retreat
Research Technicians, Jaasiel Alvarez and Alyssa Player, attended the 2024 BBE Retreat to present on the Beacon Center for Single Cell Biology. Here, they advocated for all services that our center can do to Faculty, Staff, Postdocs, and Students of the Caltech Biology and Biological Engineering (BBE) department.
2024 Beckman Institute Review
Research Technicians, Jaasiel Alvarez and Alyssa Player, at the Caltech BI Review event. This event showcased the resource centers, facilities, and pilot programs housed in and supported by Caltech's Beckman Institute (BI) building. This event allowed Caltech community to see what is available to them on campus.
BBE Spring Party
Dr Kate Malecek spoke at Caltech's Biology and Biological Engineering (BBE) Spring Party in May 2026 to inform and update the Caltech community about the Beacon Center and the Beacon platform's research capabilities.
2025 Beacon User Group Meeting
Research Technicians, Jaasiel Alvarez and Alyssa Player, presented a poster alongside Dr Malecek's presentation to detail their work on the Mosaic 8b vaccine and heavy chain only (VHH) antibodies produced by Llamas. VHHs are therapeutically valuable due to their small size, stability and functionality, allowing them to access otherwise occluded epitopes.