Week 1 - Amy

 

Clinical Observation: I am observing Dr. Kevin Curran who is a physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Curran is a pediatric oncologist at MSK Kids and is a member of the Pediatric Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapies Service. Thus, he treats children with blood cancers, bone marrow disorders, and various immune system problems. Dr. Curran is also the Pediatric Director of the Cellular Therapeutic Center at Memorial Kettering. This means that Dr. Curran, along with many other clinicians and researchers, work to create cellular treatments for children with leukemia and lymphoma. I am very passionate about creating effective therapies for cancer patients that prevent, or minimize, any side-effects resulting from treatments. His work and knowledge concerning chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells is what drove me to ask for his mentorship during the immersion program. I was delighted when he allowed me to observe him this summer, even though he has a very busy schedule. I am surprised by and thankful for the amount of personal time he gives me to ask the many questions I have. In addition to observing Dr. Curran, we have been discussing several CAR T-cell related publications he suggested I read. One article detailed the reports of a clinical trial which I found fascinating as I hope to be involved in translation research in the near future. Yesterday, I found out that a high school student would be discussing the medical field with Dr. Curran this summer. In the coming days, I will be working on finding some resources to teach the student some immunology basics and summarize how graduate students can impact the medical field.

Research: For the research portion of the immersion program, I am working with several graduate students in Dr. David Scheinberg’s lab. Dr. Scheinberg’s group develops novel immunotherapies with the hope to take these therapies into clinical trials to benefit patients. For the last couple weeks, I have been attending Dr. Scheinberg’s lab meetings and sub-group meetings and have been learning a lot about the various projects in his lab. This week I have been reading several proposals and research articles to better familiarize myself with the two projects I will be assisting with in the summer. Project 1 consists of engineering DNA origami nanocarriers for non-viral delivery to T-cells in vivo to create a CAR T-cell therapy. Specifically, I will be helping with showing that a CD3 DNA aptamer can bind to T-cells. We currently have some cells in culture for this project and I am learning how to perform human T-cell transductions and CD3 binding assays. The second project I am learning about is in regards to a SynNotch CAR T-cell that will hopefully treat metastatic cancer and prevent off-target side-effects. One of the graduate students has shown me how to produce lentivirus and has given me some very useful tips concerning this protocol. We also have performed some cell sorting and lymphocyte isolations that contribute to various aspects of this project. Additionally, the graduate students are showing me the basics of cloning and vector design. I also was able to observe them do i.p., tail vein, and retro-orbital injections into mice. I was excited to get pointers and take notes on these injections as this will be useful for my own research back at Cornell University.

NYC Activities: Arriving in NYC late Friday night, left the weekend free to explore the city before the official start of the program on Monday. Saturday was more lowkey as I explored central park and the zoo with a couple other people from the program. We ended Saturday night with AMAZING food at Tavern on the Green. Sunday we ventured out further from the medical school. We took the subway down to the World Trade Center. This was my first time ever on the subway. Being from the Midwest I have had very little exposure to public transportation, but I was actually very surprised at the painlessness of the experience. Sunday we roamed around Battery Park and Wallstreet, but my favorite part of the day was seeing the city from the One World Observatory.

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