Week 1 - Erica Wagner

This week I met with my clinical mentor, Dr. Rohit Chandwani, and my research mentor, Dr. Shuibing Chen. Dr. Chandwani is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at New York-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine and is a board-certified surgical oncologist. Dr. Chandwani specializes in pancreatic cancer and metastatic colorectal cancer and is also the Principal Investigator of a basic science laboratory studying the epigenetics of pancreatic and liver cancer. Dr. Chen is an Associate Professor of Chemical Biology in Surgery and of Chemical Biology in Biochemistry. Dr. Chen’s laboratory is focused on manipulating stem cell fate using chemical and biological approaches to develop functional tissues and organs that can be used for translational research.

So far my time at Weill Cornell has been lab focused as I learn about the projects I will be working on for the rest of the summer. In Dr. Chen’s lab, I will be learning how to differentiate stem cells to insulin secreting beta cells, and I will be helping with another project characterizing about 70 knock-out stem cell lines. I have started culturing the MEL1 cell line which is a GFP reporter line in which the cells express GFP when they express insulin. I also saw stem cell derived cardiomyocytes beating in the culture dish which was very exciting! I learned immunostaining and lentiviral transfection for a few different projects which I can easily apply to my own work back in Ithaca. Next week, I am looking forward to starting the beta cell differentiation and shadowing patient rounds, consultations, and surgeries.

I arrived in NYC Friday night which left the weekend open to activities while settling in. I walked around the area of Weill Cornell and made it down to the One World Observatory by taking the subway. The view was amazing! I was able to see most of the city including the Statue of Liberty. While walking in that area, I also stumbled upon the Fearless Girl statue and the Wall Street Bull which were two other destinations on my list.

View from the One World Observatory 
Statue of Liberty from the One World Observatory


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