G1 Students Share Lab Choices

Posted by vuit_admin on Friday, July 27, 2018 in Life in the MSTP, MSTP Workshop News .

The Vanderbilt MSTP would like to congratulate the G1 class on completing their first two years of medical school and on joining the following laboratories & graduate programs for their graduate studies:

“I’m excited to be joining the Madhur lab after my rotation last summer. The Madhur lab studies the adaptive immune system and its role in cardiovascular disease, specifically hypertension and aortic dissection. I wanted to join a lab that focuses on a clinically-relevant disease while utilizing a mouse model because physiology is cooler than stem cells are. It didn’t take long on the wards to see how pervasive hypertension and its complications are. The lab also has some really cool techniques and is full of motivated, friendly people.” – Duncan Smart

“My research interests are, broadly speaking, the interactions between social, cultural, and economic factors and health. I was drawn to working with Carolyn Audet based on multiple faculty recommendations and an easy working relationship during my brief rotation in her lab. I also feel that her training as an anthropologist and experience working abroad will nicely complement my upcoming coursework in epidemiology, giving me the tools to appropriately approach population health and health systems research in the future.”- Danny Sack

“Throughout undergrad, I have become interested in how some of the smallest organisms on the planet can lead to some of the sickest patients that you will see in the hospital. I find it fascinating how bacteria can employ a variety of virulence factors, sense their local environment, and evade the immune system to set up camp in their human host. Additionally, I am interested in learning about how our immune system interacts with these organisms, and how that can lead to either an adaptive immune response or a detrimental, maladaptive, disease causing inflammatory response. In other words, I am most interested in how the human host interacts with its (unwanted) visitors – and what’s cooler than cross-domain(!) communication? Further, I think that pulmonary infections such as community acquired or nosocomial infections are an excellent setting to study this in. Our lungs are one of the few organs to be directly exposed to our external environment, and as such require immune defenses against outside threats. However, at the same time, it needs to be delicate enough to allow for sufficient exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. I am thrilled to use a variety of cellular and molecular techniques to study these processes in the Noto lab come this fall.” – Chris Wijers

“Infectious pathogens are unique in that evolution has given living organisms an entire system dedicated at preventing them. We call it the immune system, and as I studied immunology in undergrad, I became fascinated by the myriad tools the immune system uses to defeat infections. What if we could isolate those tools and use them earlier in infections, or even before an infection? With that question in mind, I found the Crowe Lab and decided to begin my PhD in pursuit of that idea. The Crowe Lab and associated Vanderbilt Vaccine Center have developed a robust system for studying the human humoral response to numerous pathogens, particularly viruses, with the goal of enabling the development of novel vaccines and drugs. The lab is a large group, which has spurred the development of strong information technology to identify and track samples and the data produced. Additionally, the lab has made a strong push into the field of automation and robotics driven science. Each of these was a draw for me. As a physician-scientist in training, translation of research into clinical improvements is vital, and having a clear clinical goal enables that. I am also very excited by the possibilities for vastly increased throughput and reproducibility possible with automated systems paired with high quality and effective information technology. Combine that with a mentor who is always thinking ahead to the future, and I think I have found a lab that will keep me on my toes, push me to be better, and produce high quality translational research.” – Ben Fowler

“We are now able to generate genomic (and other "-omic") data cheaper, faster, and more accurately than ever before. Now that we have these huge sets of data, we have to figure out what they mean and how we want to use them effectively. I joined Tony's lab to gather the skills and be a part of a group enthusiastically creating better computational methodologies to learn about disease through our genome. I'm excited to use comparative genomic techniques to identify places in our genome that make us human and can predispose us for both common and very rare disorders. Vanderbilt has a rich history of supporting initiatives in computational personalized medicine and I am looking forward to working with BioVU and the Undiagnosed Disease Network during my time in the Capra Lab.” – Evonne McArthur

“Since majoring in computational biology in undergrad, and spending some years working on these problems, it has become my goal to apply numerical methods towards understand the mysteries of cell biology! The Lopez lab does exactly that, investigating signal transduction cascades in cells, modeling biochemical processes with differential equations, statistics, and simulations. The lab chiefly applies this investigation towards cancer and the way it dysregulates cell signaling. I am excited to join in this work, using computation to study cell processes that have an effect on human health and medicine. ” – Sam Beik

“My undergraduate research experiences were all related to cancer biology (specifically breast cancer). I did not intentionally chose to focus my studies on breast cancer, but rather fell into labs with wonderful mentors and eventually grew to find sold tumors fascinating. So upon entering the Vanderbilt MSTP, I was pretty sure I wanted to continue research in cancer biology. But more importantly, I wanted to find the person who would be the best mentor for me. This person is Dr. Rachelle Johnson. She is incredibly creative and ambitious in her lab's efforts to understand breast cancer metastasis to bone and breast cancer dormancy. Her lab employs a number of widely applicable techniques in molecular biology that will be useful for the rest of my career. And she is one of the kindest people I've ever met! She may be a newer faculty member at Vanderbilt, but she has already proved to be a devoted and very accessible mentor to her current graduate students.” – Courtney Edwards

“During my first two years of training at Vanderbilt, it became clear that I wanted my research to directly affect my day-to-day clinical interactions and be within the wide field of neuroscience. Although my previous research had been entirely in wet lab, basic science work, I began to veer more towards translational work. The Heckers Lab allows me to accomplish both of my goals by using human imaging studies to study psychosis. In addition to imaging, the lab also studies the role of memory and how it is impaired in disease states, a topic I have always found inherently interesting. While rotating in the lab, I became fascinated with potential projects and felt supported by a wide variety of faculty that jointly work together to study these topics.” – Maxwell Roeske

“I chose to join the Roden lab because of my scientific interests, a supportive environment and a wonderful mentor. My ideal PhD experience would build on both wet and dry lab techniques, and the Roden lab was full of amazing people with strong skills, who are always to help out! Furthermore, Dan is very excited about his science, and his motivation is almost infectious! It is a pleasure to work with people who are not only really great at what they do, but also really passionate about it.” – Ayesha Muhammad

“My background was in wet lab (cell culture, mice work, RT-PCR, western blots, ELISAs), but I wanted to jump to dry lab AFTER finishing first year. This was quite nerve wracking because there is a broad spectrum of dry lab and I wasn't quite sure what I wanted, other than it being translational. I also no longer had the same intuition about dry labs as I do with wet lab from my 4-5 yrs doing wet lab. I narrowed down the research fields to imaging or genetics, largely based on strong resources that are unique to Vanderbilt (i.e. VUIIS, Center for Precision Medicine). I defined my goal for my PhD on learning new research techniques that I could use later in my career and finding a mentor who would help me think critically and independently. I compiled a list of investigators by asking senior MSTP students in the departments, members of the MSTP leadership team, department heads, and then looked at each PIs current level of NIH funding. In addition to talking with the PIs themselves, I asked to speak with current/former grad students/other trainees. I explicitly asked the trainees for cons as well as pros and asked whether they would join the lab again (some actually said no so it is worth asking!). My highest priority was having a PI that I felt comfortable being honest in my worst of days, and who would be personally invested in my growth as a scientist and a person – not seeing me as a peon but helping him/herself by making me grow as a fellow investigator .

I chose to join the Human Genetics Department because the tools I acquire will be applicable in any clinical field I go to, even procedural ones (since you can just have code running in background rather than having to physically be present for mouse/cell work). I chose to join Doug Ruderfer’s lab because he is easy and fun to talk to, and has a life and fun outside of lab. I have no fear of asking questions or requesting more detailed explanations. He is a new PI and hasn't trained graduate students yet, but all previous trainees said something along the lines of "hands down join his lab".  One of them worked as a medical student with no prior coding background and now does informatics work (+1 continued work in field).”- Jay Kang