Week 7 Liz The Wrap Up

It's hard to believe seven weeks have passed already and that I am taking the C2C back to Ithaca's quiet campus.

On the left, I attached one of the pictures I took while at Weill Cornell Medical College. It shows the migration of bone marrow derived cells (BMDCs; green) into the tumor vasculature (red). It is two-photon image projection of volume of 600um x 600um x 300um into the brain tissue of an animal. I like this picture because you can see BMDCs hugging the vasculature and in some cases they appear to be inside the vessels themselves! It's pretty cool to be able to do this.

I also like this picture because I think it captures one of the benefits of summer immersion for me. In his clinical practice, Dr. Greenfield treats patients who have glioblastoma, an aggressive primary brain tumor with a two-year survival rate of a mere 25%. In his laboratory, Dr. Greenfield does genetic and molecular analysis of glioma mouse models as well as some analysis of patient samples. The aim is to determine the role of BMDCs in promoting new vessel growth, thereby promoting tumor growth. As an engineering student, I enhanced their animal model by adding in vivo imaging, like the picture shown above. We both had questions for each other: they were the experts on angiogeneis and vasculogenesis while I knew about live animal imaging and two-photon microscopy. When I left this summer, I had a better understanding of patients are treated and moreover, the multidiscplinary approach doctors use in making their treatment plans. In exchange, they now have an advanced imaging model and the means to carry out such research. I hope this collaboration will extend throughout my PhD education and beyond.

Being in a hospital setting has made me think about my career outlook differently. In particular, I'd like to work in a hospital setting. While there are more obstacles than working in an academic laboratory because of the need to protect patients and their privacy etc., I believe a more direct interaction between clinicians and engineers would speed up the process of discovery and creative thinking.

I had a great, beneficial summer experience. I like to believe that most of my peers did the same as I looked forward to hearing about their daily adventures through the operating room and clinics.

And of course, living in NYC for seven weeks was an amazing experience within itself. I am grateful to HHMI for funding, Dr. Frayer and Prof Wang for their guidance during the program, and to the Cornell BME Department for believing this is a valuable enough experience to allow us seven-weeks of time to find out how our research and skills can benefit the world.

Waiting for the 4th of July fireworks on the Hudson River. (left to right: Liz Wayne, Young-hye Song, Stephanie Lindsey, Sara Che, Ryan Nolan, and Jose Rios)