When Bryan Iorgulescu was a senior at the University of Miami, he attended a lecture on pediatric neurosurgery given by Dr. Mark Souweidane, professor of neurological surgery and neurological surgery in pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College.
Even before Dr. Souweidane's lecture, Iorgulescu was very much interested in neuroscience — he had even watched a few YouTube videos on the subject featuring Dr. Souweidane — but the lecture sealed the deal. Iorgulescu was going to go to medical school, and he was going to go to Weill Cornell, where he would be able to work with Dr. Souweidane.
Iorgulescu's goal came to fruition even before the official start of his first year of medical school. He made special arrangements to move to New York this past summer and started a research project under the mentorship of Dr. Souweidane.
That project — "Surgical Considerations of Neuroblastoma Metastasis to the Central Nervous System" — was one of more than 30 research posters presented at Weill Cornell Medical College's Medical Student Research Day.
Sponsored by the Office of Academic Affairs, the annual daylong event, which was held Feb. 23 at the Medical College, offers students the opportunity to present and discuss the research they've worked on with faculty and other investigators. Much of the research will be presented at other academic and scientific conferences in the future.
The projects are judged by faculty members, and this year two oral presentations received the top prizes. First place went to Matthew L. Goodwin's presentation "Establishment of the Hyperlactatemic Clamp: Step One Toward Using Lactate-Protected Hypoglycemia as a Novel Cancer Treatment." Second place was awarded to Sasha Druskin and his presentation "Evaluation of Axial Strain on Tendon-to-Bone Healing Using a New Single-Tunnel Model."
Natalia Jimenez's plastic surgery research focused on protecting tissue from ischemia-reperfusion injury during revascularization.
"This is a tremendous outpouring of student research and very high-quality studies," said Dr. Madelon Finkel, professor of clinical public health at Weill Cornell Medical College. "It makes it a pleasure to judge, but also very difficult."
"Medical Student Research Day is simultaneously a fantastic opportunity to showcase the contributions that our medical students make to the WCMC research engine, as well as a venue to continue the training of these students in the art of the presentation," said Dr. Brian D. Lamon, assistant dean for research development and outreach and director of medical student research at Weill Cornell. "The ability to market their science is crucial to survive as an investigator in the presently barren funding landscape."
The 2011 program was as robust as ever, including 36 projects that were spread across basic science, clinical research, community health and epidemiological research disciplines — a microcosm of the diversity of WCMC research interests.
For his project, Iorgulescu, who in addition to Dr. Souweidane worked with Dr. Ricardo J. Komotar, a neurosurgery fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Dr. Kim Kramer of Sloan-Kettering, reviewed the cases of 77 children who were treated at Sloan-Kettering for central nervous system–relapsed neuroblastoma to investigate the importance of metastasis reaction in the management of these patients.
Other projects that excited the judges and fellow researchers were Jonathan Moreno's study of certain anti-arrhythmic drugs actually causing arrhythmia, and Natalia Jimenez's poster on protecting tissue from ischemia-reperfusion injury during revascularization. Moreno is a fifth-year MD-PhD student and Jimenez is between her third and fourth year at Weill Cornell. She took two years off to pursue her research, for which she received a master's degree.