George Mason PhD graduate advances more affordable, accurate tuberculosis diagnostics
When Ahana Byne, PhD Biosciences ’26, walked across the stage at EagleBank Arena in May to receive her doctoral hood, the moment represented more than years of hard work. It marked the culmination of research with the potential to save lives, especially in low-resource areas where access to accurate, affordable tuberculosis diagnostics remains limited.
Byne came to George Mason University in 2021 with a strong interest in infectious disease. After studying bacteria as an undergraduate and fungus during her master’s program, she was ready to apply her knowledge in the lab and further explore infectious disease research.
This led her to the lab of School of Systems Biology Professor Alessandra Luchini, where she joined a tuberculosis research project developing a diagnostic method that is not only more accurate, but also affordable and easy to use.
“Tuberculosis is a very common disease, but because of diagnostic challenges, it still causes many deaths,” she said. “We’re trying to create an approach that works not only in well-equipped settings, but also in low-resource areas.”
Instead of relying on traditional samples like sputum, Byne’s research explores the use of urine—specifically urinary extracellular vesicles. Her work has already shown promising results in laboratory testing, with strong sensitivity and specificity.
According to Luchini “Ahana drove the project forward with professionalism and discipline, keeping the team on schedule, and, more than once, keeping me in line as well.”
In addition to her academic work, Byne gained industry experience through two summer internships with Ceres Nanosciences in 2024 and 2025. The experience offered a new perspective on how research operates outside academia.
“The way research is conducted in industry is very different,” she said. “It’s more structured, more time-driven, and often confidential. In academia, there’s more flexibility to explore. Both are valuable in their own way.”
During her time at George Mason, Byne also served as a graduate teaching assistant for more than four years and received a dissertation fellowship in her final semester. She presented her work at multiple conferences and earned first place for a poster presentation at the American Society for Intercellular Communication (ASIC) conference in 2024.
She credits her experience at George Mason with helping her grow both as a scientist and as an individual.
“When I started, everything was new,” she said. “Now I feel much more confident in my work. Mason helped me build that confidence and discover how much I love research.”
After defending her dissertation in April, Byne is now exploring the next step in her career. For students just starting out in biosciences, she emphasizes resilience.
“There will be failures, and sometimes your experiments won’t work,” she said. “But don’t lose hope. Be patient, stay confident, and keep going. That’s how you succeed.”
Although she has graduated from George Mason, her work continues in Luchini's lab. There, she is contributing to a research project exploring connections between long COVID and chronic Lyme disease, helping advance new diagnostic tools for complex infectious conditions.
