{"id":126431,"date":"2025-10-08T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/newsroom\/?p=126431"},"modified":"2025-10-07T13:17:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T18:17:19","slug":"spotlight-on-luke-handke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/newsroom\/2025\/10\/08\/spotlight-on-luke-handke\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotlight on: Luke Handke"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Luke Handke has spent most of his working life in a laboratory, but he\u2019s often teaching. Usually not in front of a classroom, but more often one-on-one, helping budding scientists and colleagues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI enjoy seeing people around me be successful, and if I can play some role in helping them to become successful in what they want to do, I\u2019m very happy to do that,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s where I\u2019m coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the lab\u2014\u201cmy home away from home,\u201d he said with a smile\u2014he works with an MD\/PhD scholar and a PhD student that will be finishing at the end of the year. \u201cJust helping them learn the ropes, how we do the research we do, the techniques they need to know,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve been privileged to work with the genetics workshop (staph camp), doing some teaching, so that\u2019s been rewarding to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way he looks at it, he\u2019s just repaying what he\u2019s received working at UNMC. \u201cI feel fortunate to be surrounded by talented, very kind and helpful colleagues in this department and on this floor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nebraska native first came to UNMC in 1999 as an undergraduate looking for summer employment. He wound up working in Dr. Paul Fey\u2019s lab that summer, then returned in January after earning his bachelor\u2019s degree at Kansas State University. He worked as a lab technologist until the fall of 2000, and he spent much of his time in the lab while earning his doctorate in 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Handke spent the next three years on a postdoctoral fellowship at Tufts University in Boston, where he received an F32 training grant from the NIH, then went to work for Pfizer in New York in 2008. \u201cI was brought in to support their S. aureus<\/em> vaccine program, because I had a lot of experience with staphylococcal biology from working with Paul,\u201d he said. \u201cOver time we moved to different programs. We were doing viral vaccine programs, we were working with other bacteria, with other bacterial vaccines. Eventually I found myself leading a team of molecular biologists, and we supported a vaccine program for RSV, respiratory syncytial virus, and that program ultimately went on to be a licensed vaccine they sell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018 Dr. Fey contacted him about a job back at UNMC, working again with staphylococcal metabolism and genetics. Dr. Handke said he couldn\u2019t pass on the opportunity to get back into the lab, and to move back home where most of his family lives. He said he wanted his two sons, now 15 and 13, to get to know their grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins. \u201cMy dad passed in 2023. So I was really thankful that my boys had the opportunity to get to know him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Itidal Reslane, a recent PhD graduate from the department and now a postdoctoral trainee at Vanderbilt University, said: \u201cI feel incredibly fortunate to have been mentored by Dr. Handke. He taught me many molecular biology techniques that have already proven invaluable in my postdoctoral work, even though I am currently studying a different organism. But more important than any technical skill, Luke taught me something I will always carry with me: to choose what is right over what is convenient. When you do that, you always win.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he\u2019s not at work, Dr. Handke likes to brew beer, read, listen to music, and cook for his family. \u201cI really like it,\u201d he said, though he saves his experimentation for the lab. He described himself as a follow-the-directions type in the kitchen, not someone who throws in \u201ca dash of this or a dash of that.\u201d<\/p>\nQuT S UhGaigT XIAf <\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luke Handke has spent most of his working life in a laboratory, but he\u2019s often teaching. Usually not in front of a classroom, but more often one-on-one, helping budding scientists and colleagues. \u201cI enjoy seeing people around me be successful, and if I can play some role in helping them to become successful in what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":126432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3620,3263,3652],"class_list":["post-126431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-center-for-staphylococcal-research","tag-research","tag-s-aureus","department-pathology-and-microbiology","author_override-duane-retzlaff-unmc-department-of-pathology-microbiology-and-immunology"],"yoast_head":"\nSpotlight on: Luke Handke<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Luke Handke has spent most of his working life in a laboratory, but he\u2019s often teaching. 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