It's unique for medical students early on in their education to receive summer fellowships, and yet three Weill Cornell Medical College students have done just that.
First-year students Avinash Maganty and Jenny Jin have each received a summer fellowship from the St. Baldrick's Foundation to conduct pediatric oncology research this summer. Maganty and Jin, who will also receive stipends, follow in the footsteps of second-year student J. Bryan Iorgulescu, who last year was the first Weill Cornell student to receive the Foundation's fellowship.
"It's an honor in and of itself to be supported by the St. Baldrick's Foundation," said Dr. Brian Lamon, assistant dean for research development and director of medical student research at Weill Cornell. "The St Baldrick's Foundation is impressive in its drive to fund all different approaches and stages of research, including very early stage investigators like our medical students. This great opportunity really has the potential to help shape careers to improve the fight against childhood cancers."
The St. Baldrick's Foundation, a volunteer-driven charity committed to funding the most promising research to find cures for childhood cancers, has dedicated more than $78 million in childhood cancer resarch grants — more than any other organization except the U.S. government. The Foundation awards the fellowships to students who are interested in studying pediatric oncology in medical school, providing them the opportunity to work on childhood cancer research projects during the summer and explore the field of study at an early stage of their careers.
This year, the Foundation has awarded $85,000 to support summer fellows at 17 institutions across the U.S., Weill Cornell being the only institution in the New York metropolitan area.
"With the goal of ensuring the best and brightest are at work helping children with cancer, St. Baldrick's knows that providing early exposure to childhood cancer research is key to attracting top medical students to the profession," said Kathleen Ruddy, executive director for the St. Baldrick's Foundation. "Advancements in childhood cancer treatments would not be possible without researchers who choose to specialize in this field. One of this year's summer fellows may one day achieve a cure we've been waiting for."
Avinash Maganty will be working with Dr. Praveen Raju, assistant professor of Pediatrics and the Caryl and Israel A. Englander Clinical Scholar at Weill Cornell Medical College, as well as a pediatrician at the Phyllis and David Komansky Center for Children's Health at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, for eight weeks on his translational research program that focuses on the childhood brain tumor medulloblastoma. Using mouse and in-vitro models, Maganty will test the efficacy and determine the mechanism of action of a specific drug to treat medulloblastoma. This drug is already FDA approved for the treatment of leukemia and may also be useful for the treatment of these malignant brain tumors, which account for 20 percent of childhood brain tumors each year.
Jenny Jin, right, with mentor Dr. Sarah Lo, assistant professor of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell
Maganty's interest in oncology stemmed from his own personal experience: witnessing his father battle cancer and personally seeing patients suffer with the disease. It's an interest that carried through his undergraduate and graduate studies, and one he is now pursing in medical school — and, perhaps, beyond.
"This will give me an opportunity to explore pediatric oncology and see if this is something I'd want to pursue as a career," Maganty said.
Jenny Jin discovered her passion for oncology research while working as a health care management consultant after her undergraduate studies. Her experiences in the field exposed her to the interplay of patients, providers, payors and pharmaceutical companies, and provided her a holistic understanding of how to best care for patients who need longitudinal care, she said.
Those experiences also illustrated the impact cancer has on patients' lives, particularly children. The drive to truly make a difference in peoples' lives was the main reason she decided to continue her studies at Weill Cornell. The St. Baldrick's grant will support that aspiration by funding research on childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia with Dr. Sarah Lo, assistant professor of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell and a pediatrician at Komansky Center for Children's Health at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell.
Using genomic methods, Jin will be studying the molecular etiology of acute lymphoblastic leukemia — the most common childhood cancer in developed countries which accounts for one-third of all pediatric cancer cases and a leading cause of childhood cancer death — in the hopes of finding the molecular causes of the disease.
"This grant will help me get my footing in pediatric oncology to see if it's something I want to pursue in the future," she said. "So it could potentially launch my career."
Bryan Iorgulescu, front, with mentor Dr. Mark Souweidane, professor of neurological Surgery and professor of neurological surgery in Pediatrics at Weill Cornell, director of pediatric neurological surgery at Weill Cornell
For Bryan Iorgulescu, it already has. As the first recipient of the St. Baldrick's Foundation's Summer Fellowship at Weill Cornell, he worked on new treatment strategies for children with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, a devastating type of pediatric brain cancer, with Dr. Mark Souweidane, professor of neurological Surgery and professor of neurological surgery in Pediatrics at Weill Cornell, director of pediatric neurological surgery at Weill Cornell and a neurological surgeon at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell.
Now Bryan Iorgulescu is headed to the University of California, San Francisco to continue his pioneering research, as the newest fellow in the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Clinical Research Fellowship program, a one-year mentored clinical research opportunity designed to span a broad range of research ranging from bench laboratory science to clinical and translational science, epidemiology and outcomes research.
"St. Baldrick's had faith in me and they supported me with the opportunity that allowed me to make a contribution to the field," he said.
The St. Baldrick's Foundation was originated by reinsurance executives John Bender, Tim Kenny and Enda McDonnell 12 years ago who turned their industry's St. Patrick's Day party into a head-shaving event to benefit kids with cancer. Their 20 recruits planned to raise $17,000. Instead, they raised more than $104,000. The movement has since grown into the world's largest volunteer-driven fundraising program for childhood cancer research, with more than 240,000 people shaving their heads and raising more than $148 million for research.
"I think the Foundation itself is significant because it's rooted in the efforts of normal people who wanted to make a difference in their own community," Jin said. "It still maintains those roots and is involved in community action. To me, St. Baldrick's generosity in awarding me this grant as a medical student means so much more because that money is coming from people just like me."