After growing up an hour away in New Jersey and spending four years in Boston, I knew the city would feel like home. The simple ability to walk outside, be surrounded by people, and go on adventure at anytime is invigorating and makes each day that much more exciting.
To go along with the city life, I was equally excited to learn from immunology and lymphoma-focused researchers and clinicians to move forward in my own research. In Ithaca, I work on creating immune “organoids”, or mini-organs in a dish. In other words, organoids resemble the target organ and capture at least some of its functionality. These platforms are primarily used to study development, dysfunction and disease, and drug response. I aim to use my immune organoids to better understand how microenvironmental cues affect B cell development and antibody production as well as lymphoma growth and the ensuing drug response.
However, as a new and unconventional system, there is natural resistance from traditional immunologists who are not convinced that the early encouraging results from our system fully represent in vivo conditions. To qualm these doubts, I’m excited to work with these researchers and clinicians over this summer to better define the design parameters and ensuing functional outputs for the widespread acceptance and use of our organoid platform.
Specifically, in terms of research, I am working in the labs of both Dr. Ethel Cesarman and Dr. Ari Melnick studying the effect of microenvironmental cues on canonical lymphoma signaling pathways and drug response. Clinically, I am also seeking to better understand the entire process of lymphoma treatment and current patient experiences.
To gain this clinical perspective, my goal is to shadow the various physicians present on a typical lymphoma treatment team, including a hematologist, oncologist, and radiation oncologist. Fortunately, Dr. Ethel’s group collaborates with Dr. Lisa Roth, a hematology-oncologist in WCMC’s Lymphoma Program, who I will begin to shadow next week. Dr. Min also recently connected me with Dr. Silvia Fermenti, a radiation oncologist, who’s also coincidentally a leader in immunotherapies.
Although I’m sure I’m going to be a bit emotional during Dr. Roth’s pediatric clinic, the mere ability to interact with these patients has me more motivated and excited about my research. Looking forward, I can't wait to gain a better clinical perspective to dictate how to move forward in my research to ultimately cure these patients through more personalized care.
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