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

• Gustavo Borjas (G2 in Pathology/Immunology) serves as the 2026 APSA Midwest Regional Conference lead organizer. He is also a member of the John S Diekhoff Award committee in the CWRU School of Graduate Studies.
• Andy Chen (G3 in Genetics & Genome Sciences) has been a teaching assistant and course manager for CWRU SOM's Introduction to Psychedelic Medicine since 2024.
• Laura Chen (G3 in Biomedical Engineering) serves as the Head Engineering Appraiser for Destination Imagination Ohio.
• Juliana Condoleo (G2 in Pharmacology) was selected to participate in the Cryo-EM Short Course at the National Center for Cryo-EM Access and Training at the New York Structural Biology Center. She also serves as a planning committee member for the Cleveland Center for Membrane and Structural Biology Symposium.
• Hamza Dahshi (G1 in Systems Biology & Bioinformatics) serves as a student advisor for the CWRU American Muslim Medical Student Association.
• Katherine Dominic (G4+ in Physiology & Biophysics) serves as the co-president of the CWRU Department of Physiology and Biophysics Graduate Student Council.
• Claire Fritz (G4+ in Pathology/Cancer Biology) is a course facilitator for Introduction to Clinical Inquiry I, II. She also serves as vice president of the Pathology Graduate Student Council and is committee chair for the inaugural Cancer Biology Training Program Retreat.
• Natasha Ingles (M4 in Pathology/Cancer Biology) has been a PREP steering committee member and alumni representative since 2023. 
• Spenser Johnson (M2 undecided) has been a HyperCase project leader since 2025 and is currently serving as Vice President of Strategy. 
• Rupleen Kaur {M3 in Systems Biology and Bioinformatics) serves as a scientific officer for Rise Up: Northeast Ohio.
• Kayla Klatt (G3 in Pathology/Immunology) serves as President for HyperCASE at CWRU.
• Sophia Korotev (M2 in Cell Biology) serves as a Cancer Care Elective leader and the president of the Medical Genetics Interest Group. 
• Matthew Liu (G1 in Systems Biology & Bioinformatics) has served as president of the Students for a National Health Program since 2025.
• Uyen Mai (G1 in Clinical Translational Science) serves as the coordination leader for the CWRU Human Rights Initiative.
• Tommy Nguyen (G1 in Pharmacology) has served as a student leader for CWRU SOM's Medical Students for Deaf Awareness since 2025.

Recent Publications

• Emily Klemm: Klemm E, Gibbs E, Stauffer M, Mohapatra D, Meyer C, Chakrapani S. Human GlyRα2 pore dynamics in gating and inhibition. Structure. 2026; 34:798-813.e7, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.str.2026.02.013.
• Katherine Letai: Letai KC, Islam BN, Menghini P, De Salvo C, Khandekar N, Armstrong B, Tomar A, Curry K, Pizarro TT, Tesar PJ, Scavuzzo MA, Cominelli F. Epithelial and stromal remodelling in murine Crohn’s disease-like ileitis. Gut Science. 2026; 1:e000008. https://doi.org/10.1136/gutsci-2025-000008.
• Christina MacAskill: MacAskill CJ, Erokwu BP, Zhu Y, Wang G, Dupuis A, Schiemann BJ, Ramammurthy G, Dhakan CB, Kavran M, Wu C, Schielmann WP, Sun Y, Griswold MA, Yu X, Pagel MD, Flask CA. Dynamic contrast enhanced-magnetic resonance fingerprinting (DCE-MRF) improves detection of induced vascular perfusion reduction in a mouse breast cancer model. Magnet Res Med. 2026; 95(6):3369–3385, https://doi.org/10.1002/mrm.70274. The abstract was also included in the Proceedings of the 34th Annual Meeting of ISMRM.
• Kevin Newhall: Newhall KP, de Sousa Bezerra AV, Goddard JM, McNeer SK, Mittal A, Gutzmann DJ, Swamy S, Karuvannur M, Espenschied ST, Zhou JY, Runge KW, Kurowski JA, Hogan DA, Stappenbeck TS. The role of HIL1 in strain-level adhesion and immune recognition in Debaryomyces hansenii. mBio. 2026; 17:e01107-26. https://doi.org/10.1128/mbio.01107-26.
• Michelle Pan: Pan MJ, Abbott DW. Autoinhibitory control of MLKL governs pseudokinase domain phosphorylation and oligomerization during necroptosis. Cell Reports. 2026; 45(4), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2026.117130.
• Joseph Schindler: Schindler JC, Seth P, Hausladen A, Chan ER, Yang J, Qin J, Qian Z, Seth D, Lundberg K, Luna JM, Premont RT, Stamler JS. Nitric oxide drives proteomic diversity through alternative splicing. Molecular Cell. 2026; 86(12):2325-2340.e9, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2026.04.024.
• Prerna Singh: Singh P, Hoori A, Lee J, Williams MC, Al-Kindi S, Newby DE, Rajagopalan S, Wilson DL. Sub-Agatston coronary calcification on non-contrast cardiac CT and cardiovascular risk. Eur J Prev Cardiol. 2026;, zwag285, https://doi.org/10.1093/eurjpc/zwag285.

Conferences and Presentations

• Corynn Appolonia presented her poster and abstract at the 2026 Pediatric Endocrine Society Annual Conference.
• Henock Befekadu was one of only 35 recipients invited to present his work at the 2026 NIH Biophysics Fellows Research Conference.
• Emily Blaum gave a poster presentation and corresponding talk at the 2026 Translational Research Cancer Centers Consortium Annual Meeting.
• Gustavo Borjas and Indrani Das each gave a poster presentations and corresponding talks at the 2026 Translational Research Cancer Center Consortium (TRCCC).
• Claire Fritz was selected for a podium presentation at the 2026 American Head and Neck Society 12th Annual International Conference. She also received the award for Outstanding Student Oral Presentation at the CWRU Cancer Biology Training Program Retreat.
• Inga Hwang was invited to present her work at the 2026 Case Center for Imaging Research Trainee Showcase.
• Jacob Ingber was invited to present his work at the 2026 American Transplant Congress.
• Mahip Kalra presented his work at the 2026 Pharmacology Department Journal Club and the Vision Research Course Journal Club.
• Paul Karell was invited to present his work at the 2026 Cleveland Clinic Department of Inflammation and Immunity Trainee Seminar Series.
• Kayla Klatt was invited to present her work at the 2026 AACR Annual Meeting. She also recieved the CWRU Graduate and Medical Student Research Day Outstanding Poster Award.
• Alice Liu and Tzu-Ni Sin each presented their work at the 2026 Annual Associated Research for Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO).
• Christina MacAskill was invited to present her work at the 2026 Case Center for Imaging Research Showcase: Spring into Imaging Research.
• Iris Peng was invited to present her work at the 2026 AD/PD Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. 
• Zachary Player was invited to present his work at the 2026 Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Annual Scientific Meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
• Vanessa Salazar was invited to present her work at the 2026 Society for Investigative Dermatology: Innate Immunity, Microbiology, and Microbiome Concurrent Minisymposium. She also presented at the 2026 American Academy of Dermatology: Gross & Microscopic Symposium.
• Jacob Smothers presented their work at the 2026 Kidney, Urology, and Hematology Research Training Network (KUHR TN) Regional Meeting.
• Javier Urcuyo Acevedo was invited to present his work at the 2026 AAP/ASCI/APSA Joint Meeting. He also gave a poster presentation and corresponding talk at the 2026 28th Annual Translational Research Cancer Centers Consortium Meeting.
• Sofiya Vyshnya was invited to present her work at and the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology Annual Meeting. She also won the Best Poster Award at the 2026 SPIE Medical Imaging Meeting in Vancouver, Canada.
• Walter Zhao was invited to present his work at the 2026 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine Annual Meeting in Cape Town, South Africa.
• Princeton Zhong presented his work at the 2026 CCIR Research Showcase.

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 in 2025 and 2026.

• Corynn Appolonia was awarded an F30
• Henock Befekadu was awarded an F31
• Laura Chen was awarded an F30
• Indrani Das received the PhRMA Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship in Translational Medicine
• Claire Fritz was awarded an F30
• Emily Klemm was awarded an F30
• Christina MacAskill was awarded an F30
• Kevin Newhall was awarded an F30
• Joe Schindler was awarded an F30
• Ying Xiong was awarded an F31
• Walter Zhao was awarded an F30

Medical School Graduation Awards 2026

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

• Lucie Ahn
  Department of Neurology Award
• Lucie Ahn and Yi Fan Chen
  The Martin Wahl Memorial Fund Award
• Raza Haider
  The Minerva and Carl Wiggers Prize in Physiology
• Eshan King
  The Max Miller Award
• Nicholas Venetos 
  The Leslie T. Webster, Jr. Graduation Award

Graduate and Doctoral Excellence Awards 2026

• Prerna Singh
  Outstanding Biomedical Engineering Student Award
• Jesse Zhan
  The Arthur F.W. Hughes Award

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

• Jesse Zhan received the award from the Genetics & Genome Sciences Program

Other Awards 2026

• Bijoya Basu was named as a Rising Star in Medical Research by the American Medical Association.
• Laura Chen received the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy Abstract Travel Award. She also placed third in the MIT Hacking Medicine GrandHack in the Portable Health Track.
• Indrani Das received the Young Investigator Award from the American Association of Immunologists.
• Claire Fritz received the CWRU Graduate Student Appreciation Award.
• Skyler Hoang recieved the Helen H. Glaser Student Essay Award from the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. Their essay will be published in The Pharos, the society's quarterly journal.
• Kayla Klatt received the Lenore A. Kola Graduate Student Community Service Award, Case Western Reserve University.
• Christina MacAskill received the CWRU Outstanding Biomedical Engineering Student Award.
• Vanessa Salazar received the Society for Investigative Dermatology Annual Meeting Travel Grant.
• Tzu-Ni Sin received theKnights Templar Eye Foundation Travel Grant.
• Javier Urcuyo Acevedo received the Student Leadership Legacy Award from the Student National Medical Association (SNMA) & Latino Medical Student Association (LMSA).
• Walter Zhao was the recipient of the CWRU Hiro Fujita Award, a top imaging trainee award.  

PhD Defenses 2026

• Bijoya Basu  "Asprosin's Modulation of Neural Circuits in Health and Disease"
• Diana Chin  "RUNX2 drives 3D epigenetic landscape of osteosarcoma"
• Natalie Hong  "Immunonanoparticles for simultaneous modulation of inflammation and lipids"
• Emily Klemm  "Human Homomeric GlyRα2: Pore Architecture, Gating, and Inhibition"
• Thomas Lavin  "Use of HIV-Based Virus-Like Particles in the Kick-and-Kill Approach to an HIV Cure"
• Katherine Letai  "Transcriptional Blueprints of Gastrointestinal Disease: A Focus on Pathologic Glia"
• Kevin Newhall  "Fungal strain diversity governs host-microbe interactions of Debaryomyces hansenii"
• Michelle Pan  "Investigating Mechanisms of Cell Death Regulation in Innate Immunity"
• Joseph Schindler  "Control of RNA Metabolism by Nitric Oxide"
• Prerna Singh  "Cardiovascular risk prediction beyond the agatston score: Opportunistic analysis of CT calcium score imaging"
• Kyle Starost  "Investigating the GOLPH3 Pathway"

Match List 2026

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.