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Thesis Research Summary:
I am originally from Wheeling, West Virginia, which is about an hour away from Pittsburgh, PA. Since Wheeling is such a small city surrounded by several rural communities, I decided to attend college in a large city for a change of pace, and therefore, attended Drexel University. I majored in biomedical engineering and received my first taste of research in Dr. Cato T. Laurencin’s laboratory. Here, I learned the intimate relationship between clinical medicine and research, and although I thought about pursuing graduate work then, I wasn’t quite sure what path I wanted to take. My initial work was on creating biodegradable replacements for the anterior cruciate ligament and although I really enjoyed research, I became deeply interested in medicine and decided to attend medical school. During my first year of medical school, I got the opportunity to work in the HIV clinic at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. I became really interested in HIV, but with this clinical experience as well as others, it became apparent to me that I had a thirst for knowledge and really missed working in the field of research. It was at this point that I decided that a career as a medical scientist would be more fulfilling to me. I therefore applied to Drexel’s M.D./Ph.D. program and chose to work with Dr. Wigdahl on human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1); a retrovirus that causes cancer and neurologic disease. My thesis will focus on the role of dendritic cells in autoimmunity, utilizing the disease model of HTLV-1 associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP) as a model for autoimmunity and neuroinflammation. I see my future career in academic medicine, dividing my time between running a research laboratory, teaching, and seeing patients. |