Student Accomplishments

The Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) at Case Western Reserve University 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

• Erin Cohn, M3, Served as a Scientific Officer for Rise Up: Northeast Ohio
• Rupleen Kaur, Systems Biology and Bioinformatics, Served as a Scientific Officer for Rise Up: Northeast Ohio

Recent Publications

• MSTP students Hannah Kondolf, Meghan O'Keefe and Bowen Zhou, and MSTP alumni and current faculty member Chris Ryder co-authored the following: Ryder CB, Kondolf HC, O'Keefe ME, Zhou B, Abbott DW. Chemical Modulation of Gasdermin-Mediated Pyroptosis and Therapeutic Potential. J Mol Biol. 2022 Feb 28;434(4):167183.
• Emily Klemm published the following paper in Nature Communications:  Gibbs E, Klemm E, Seiferth D, Kumar A, Ilca SL, Biggin PC, Chakrapani S. Conformational transitions and allosteric modulation in a heteromeric glycine receptor. Nat Commun. 2023 Mar 13;14(1):1363.
• Three of our M4 MSTP students, Kevin Allan, Otis Pinkard, and David Sweet published the following article: Martin S, Allan KC, Pinkard O, Sweet T, Tesar PJ, Coller J. Oligodendrocyte differentiation alters tRNA modifications and codon optimality-mediated mRNA decay. Nat Commun. 2022 Aug 25;13(1):5003.
• Alicia Vagnozzi published a paper entitled, "Coordinated cadherin functions sculpt respiratory motor circuit connectivity' in eLife: https://elifesciences.org/articles/82116 

Conferences and Presentations

• Syrena Bracey presented her work at the 2023 Keystone Symposia Conference in Snowbird, Utah. 
• Sarah Barker presented her work at the 2025 ADPD meeting in Vienna Austria. 
• Jennings Luu received the Qais Farjo Memorial Travel Grant award from the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) and presented a poster at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting in Denver, CO.

Research Grants and Scholarships

Twenty of our current students have been awarded F30 or F31 grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  Many more have received scholarships or fellowships from other organizations. Below is a list of those newly awarded 2024 and 2025.

• Corynn Appolonia was awarded an F30
• Diana Chin was awarded an F30
• Sofia Corella was awarded an F31
• Himanshu Dashora was awarded an F30
• Claire Fritz was awarded an F30
• Nicholas Venetos was awarded an F30
• Ying Xiong was awarded an F31
• Walter Zhao was awarded an F30

Medical School Graduation Awards 2025

MSTP students were well represented this year at the CWRU School of Medicine Graduation Awards Ceremony:

• All of our 2025 MD Graduates received Honors with Distinction in Research
• Michelle Cruz:  The Donald E. Minch, MD, Memorial Award
• Derek Wong:
  The Max Miller Award
  The Martin Wahl Memorial Fund Award
• Preethy Sridharan
  The Martin Wahl Memorial Fund Award
• Michaela Cooley and Emma Kundracik: 
  The Leslie T. Wester, Jr. Graduation Award
• Marc Ferrell:
  The Miverva and Carl Wiggers Prize in Physiology
• Muta Abiff: 
  The Harry Resnick Memorial Fund Award
• Katrina Piemonte:
  The Noether Memorial Fund Award

Graduate and Doctoral Excellence Awards 2025

Doctoral Excellence Awards are given for Original Scholarly Work, Significant Contribution to the Field, and Significant Service Contributions.  

• Eshan King received the award from Systems Biology and Bioinformatics Program

Other Awards 2024-25

• Christina MacAskill received the Outstanding Biomedical Engineering Student Award and was also named the 2024 inaugural Young Investigator awardee for the Research Institute for Children's Health
• Walter Zhao was the recipient of the Hiro Fujita Award, a top imaging trainee award.  Walter also won the 2024 Excellence in Mentorship award
• Razaq Durodoye was named as a 2024-2026 Human Genetics Scholar by The American Society of Human Genetics
• Kayla Klatt received the Lenore A. Kola Graduate Student Community Service Award
• Claire Fritz received the Graduate Student Appreciation Award

PhD Defenses 2025

• Sarah Barker "Traumatic brain injury induced acceleration of aging related neurodegenerative disease"
• Melissa Bonner "Piezo1 deletion in CD11b+ Cells imparts context-dependent changes on the anti-tumor response"
• Brendan Boylan "B Cell and stromal cell responses in the brain and its borders during neurotropic coronavirus infection"
• Syrena Bracey "Role of palmitoylation in GSDMA localization and GSDMA-mediated pyroptosis"
• Razaq Durodoye "Characterizing the roles of race, ethnicity, ancestry, and APOE in late-onset Alzheimer’s disease"
• Daniel Feinberg "Exploring regulation of immune cell cytotoxicity and targeting novel tumor antigens to improve adoptive cell therapy for cancer"
• Zachary Grimmett "S-nitrosylation in regulation of signaling through beta-adrenergic receptors and impact on cardiovascular function"
• Natasha Ingles "Elucidating the impact of genome integrity mechanisms in cancer progression and aggressiveness"
• Brian Kim "Asprosin transactivation underlies obesity relapse and inheritance"
• Erik Koritzinsky "Novel strategies to inhibit ischemia-reperfusion injury in high-risk allografts"
• Alexander Lesser "Cystic fibrosis and metabolism: an investigation of glucose metabolism in various models of cystic fibrosis"
• Benjamin Mittman "Artificial intelligence and decision analytics for venous thromboembolism prevention"
• Meghan O'Keefe "Beyond pyroptosis: cellular consequences of inflammasome stimulation"
• Vanessa Salazar "Skin microbiota drive immune checkpoint inhibitor toxicity"
• Josephine Trichka "Regulation of inflammation by a noncanonical activity of the ESCRT protein CHMP5"
• Sabrina Wang "Lipocalin-2 mediated suppression of ferroptosis in glioblastoma"
• William Wulftange "Microengineered systems for advancing hematological precision therapies"
• Jesse Zhan "Investigating the circadian aspect of oligodendroglia biology"
• Walter Zhao "Clinical translation of magnetic resonance fingerprinting for glioblastoma infiltration imaging"

Match List 2025

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.