Chapter 6: Week 7

This week of Immersion, my algorithm has been completed and it works with the test images I have been provided. Next week I will be working with medical students to analyze some data in order to calculate various drug distribution parameters, and I look forward to seeing if the algorithm works for their purposes. Something I had to largely consider when developing this code was that the individuals using this code may not be familiar with MATLAB, so I had to program the script into a GUI in order to workaround the users having to input more code later. I have also been considering clinical translation for this project. This algorithm is intended to be used to analyze mouse data but I see no reason why, if it is optimal for such analysis, it could not be used to look at human imaging studies as well.

I attended several seminars of interest this week. Because I am interested in neural work for my thesis research, I attended a seminar entitled "EEG and Acute Brain Injury." The seminar was presented in a very clinically relevant manner. The format of the talk was different than what I am used to in a research setting. Instead of presenting data from in vitro or animal trials, this talk focused on several cases that involved patients. I attended another seminar regarding cellular regulation of contraction via actomysin. This talk was more what I am used to from a research setting. It included many screenings in c. elegans for various genes and mutations that alter the role of actomysin in cell and organism contractility. 

My assigned mentor was traveling this week but I was able to see some other surgeries. I was able to get in touch with another physician and I watched a double mastectomy procedure. I watched a similar procedure last week but this one was more interesting. The elasticity of the patient's skin had been decreased during chemotherapy and radiation treatment, so the surgeon had to use a skin flap from the patients back to cover the incision site from which the breast tissue was removed. I was very impressed with the technique, as I did not know this alternative existed.

For this week's food recommendation, I suggest getting some cereal milk flavored ice cream from the Momofuku Milk Bar in midtown. It was a very strange flavor of ice cream, I will admit. But when else will you get a chance in your life to say you tried eating ice cream that is flavored like Corn Flakes?