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Medical Scientist Training Program

Vanderbilt MSTP Summer Scholars Attend the Leadership Alliance National Symposium Research Conference

Posted by on Tuesday, October 16, 2018 in MSTP Workshop News .

The six students in the Vanderbilt MSTP Summer Undergraduate Research Program attended the Leadership Alliance National Symposium Research Conference in Hartford, CT July 26-28 where each of the program participants presented their summer research projects in an oral presentation. This was a great opportunity to gain practice presenting their research to a national audience. While at the conference, they also attended inspiring keynote talks by scientists from diverse backgrounds, a session on MD/PhD training and admissions, and a recruiting fair. In addition, the students gained additional presentation experience through poster presentations at the Vanderbilt Summer Science Academy Annual Student Research Symposium. All of our summer scholars did an amazing job and we are so proud of all they accomplished this summer!

  • Nora Gilliam completed her summer project titled “Helicobacter Pylori Genetic Adaptation in Response to Gastric Inflammation and Other Environmental Factors” in the lab of Dr. Timothy Cover in the Department of Pathology, Microbiology & Immunology
  • Aliana Lawrence completed her summer project titled “Defining the Associations Between Lifestyle Factors and Colorectal Cancer Risk in the Southern Community Cohort Study” in the lab of Dr. Shaneda Warren Andersen in the Division of Epidemiology
  • Charles “Jack” Robbins completed his summer project titled “Drug Resistance and Cell Death Mechanisms of Nonquiescent ‘Idling’ Population State in BRAF-Mutated Melanoma” in the lab of Dr. Vito Quaranta in the Department of Biochemistry
  • Isaiah Swann completed his summer project titled “Transcriptionally-Regulated Genes Direct Gap Junction Specificity in the Motor Circuit of C. elegans” in the lab of Dr. David Miller in the Department of Cell & Developmental Biology
  • Brian Tirado completed his summer project titled “The Effect of a Human LNK Polymorphism on Erythropoietin Receptor Signal Transduction” in the lab of Dr. Meena Madhur in the Department of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics
  • Alexander Weingart completed his summer project titled “Phenotyping of the Airway Epithelium In Search For Subpopulation Of Cells Conferring Long Term Risk For Developing Lung Cancer” in the lab of Dr. Pierre Massion in the Department of Medicine

One of our summer scholars, Isaiah Swann, was featured in this piece in myVU and another, Alex Weingart, was featured in this piece by the VUMC Reporter!