Student Accomplishments

MSTP and the CWRU School of Medicine provides a training environment and ample opportunities to be prolific in the sciences and active in the community.  Here are just  a few of our students' recent accomplishments.

Leadership roles

Razaq Durodoye, M1 planning to join Genetics & Genome Sciences, has been elected Committee of Student Representatives President at CWRU-SOM and the president of the Upsilon Chapter of the Phi Delta Epsilon international medical fraternity.

Recent Publications

Nathaniel Robinson, PhD 4 in Pathology, published a paper entitled “SLX4IP and telomere dynamics dictate breast cancer metastasis and therapeutic responsiveness” in the journal Life Science Alliance: https://www.life-science-alliance.org/content/3/4/e201900427

Michael McHenry, PhD 2 in Epidemiology & Biostatistics, published a paper entitled “Genetics and evolution of tuberculosis pathogenesis: New perspectives and approaches” in the journal Infection, Genetics, and Evolution and just had a paper entitled “Interaction between host genes and M. tuberculosis lineage can affect tuberculosis severity: evidence for coevolution?” in the Journal PLoS Genetics. Pre-print prior to revision: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/769448v1

Alicia Vagnozzi, PhD 3 in Neurosciences, published a paper entitled “Phrenic-specific transcriptional programs shape respiratory motor output” in the journal eLife: https://elifesciences.org/articles/52859

Andrew Morton, PhD 4 in Genetics & Genome Sciences, published a paper entitled “Functional Enhancers Shape Extrachromosomal Oncogene Amplifications” in the journal Cell: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31761532,

Jessica Scarborough, PhD 1 in Systems Biology and Bioinformatics, submitted a paper entitled "Identifying states of collateral sensitivity during the evolution of therapeutic resistance in Ewing’s sarcoma," which is currently under review. Pre-print: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.11.943936v1

Joseph Rathkey, M4 in Pathology, published a paper entitled “Human polymorphisms in Gsdmd alter the inflammatory response” in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and this article was among the top 50 most downloaded in the month of February.

Stevephen Hung, M3 in Genetics & Genome Sciences, published his thesis, entitled “Mismatch repair-signature mutations activate gene enhancers across human colorectal cancer epigenomes” in eLife: https://elifesciences.org/articles/40760

Kevin Allen, PhD 4 in Genetics & Genome Sciences, has finished the pre-print of his recent work, “Non-Canonical Targets of HIF1a Drive Cell-Type-Specific Dysfunction” for future submission: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.03.003632v1

Conferences and Presentations

Willie Miller-Little, PhD 2 in Pathology (ITP), presented his work at the 2019 annual meeting of the International Cytokine and Interferon Society, in Vienna, Austria

Michael McHenry, PhD 2 in Epidemiology & Biostatistics, presented his work at Keystone 2019 Keystone Symposia Conference A3: Tuberculosis: Mechanisms, Pathogenesis and Treatment in Banff, Alberta and at the 2019 American Society for Human Genetics meeting in Houston, TX

Research Grants

James Ahad was awarded an F30 from the NIH for “Development of Real-time MR imaging and Visualization System to Improve MR-guided Prostate Biopsy” 

Community Engagement

Sarah Barker and Kevin Newhall (M1’s) have been volunteering with the Cuyahoga County Board of Health to assist with their coronavirus response in the county. Medical students are tracing contacts of positive Covid-19 cases, fielding phone questions from the general public, and interviewing positive Covid-19 cases about their symptoms: https://www.cleveland.com/business/2020/03/cuyahoga-county-disease-detectives-cwru-medical-students-track-coronavirus-in-one-of-ohios-hotspots.html

Awards and Advocacy

Uriel Kim, PhD 3 in Clinical and Translational Science and a CTSC TL1 Scholar, received the "Outstanding Trainee: Predoctoral Scholar Award" by the Association for Clinical and Translational Science. Uriel's award includes an honorarium and his highlight video will be featured as part of the virtual Translational Science 2020 joint annual meeting of the Association for Clinical and Translational Science (ACTS), the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the American Federation for Medical Research (AFMR), the Clinical Research Forum, and the PhRMA Foundation.   http://www.actscience.org/ts2020awards

Uriel Kim, PhD 3 (Clinical Translational Science), Andrew Morton, PhD 4 (Genetics & Genome Sciences), and Michael Babinchak, PhD 4 (Physiology & Biophysics) were awarded The 2020 Doctoral Excellence Awards.

Gloria Tavera, M3 in Clinical and Translational Sciences, received the 2020 Kaiser Permanente Medical Student Scholarship, in recognition of commitment to supporting under-served communities. The award totals $5,000 and recipients will be honored at a banquet in San Francisco, CA in September 2020. Recipients are encouraged to complete a clinical elective at a Kaiser Northern California facility between now and the middle of the final year of medical school.

Christian Anderson, Anna Henry-Borton, Alex Gooding, and Joseph Rathkey (M4s) are all recent AOA inductees

PhD Defenses

We have had many students successfully defend their PhD dissertations recently.  Here is a list of those that occurred this spring.

Michael Babinchak,  "The Role of Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation in the Aggregation of the Wild Type and Mutant TDP-43 in Neurodegenerative Diseases"

Ryan Gimple,  "Analysis of Epigenetic Landscapes Identifies Functional Therapeutic Vulnerabilities in Glioblastoma" 

Uriel Kim,  "Health services access and cancer disparities among low-income Ohioans"

Andrew Morton,  "Delineating the role of enhancers in extrachromosomal oncogene amplifications"

Claire Mazahery,  "CD8+ T cell mediated immunity is disrupted by ex vivo and in vivo opioid use"

Match List 2020

Our MSTP students had an incredible year. The key here is not only where they went, but where they wanted to go and whether they had options. First choice was once again the rule rather than the exception. 

Students, if you have something new to add, tell us about it here.