NY Graduate Student Symposium on Cell and Cancer Biology
On March 24, 2016, more than 60 Ph.D. and M.D./Ph.D. students from a dozen research institutions in New York and New Jersey gathered for the New York Graduate Student Symposium on Cell and Cancer Biology, held at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The event was part of a local meeting series funded by the American Society of Cell Biology (ASCB) that was organized in part by Einstein fourth-year Ph.D. student Samer Hanna—who led a team of four NY-area students serving on the event’s organizing committee.
Einstein student Edison Leung during his presentation“After attending a meeting at Cold Spring Harbor last year, I was inspired to bring a similar meeting to New York City,” explained Mr. Hanna, who is working toward his thesis defense in the laboratory of Dr. Dianne Cox. “After contacting the organizing committee, I wrote a grant proposal and we got funded.”
He added, “A meeting like this offers the perfect opportunity for all of us to get to know other graduate students in and around New York and to talk science. It’s also a great seeding ground for establishing new collaborations.”
“The goal of the symposium was to provide area graduate students a platform for sharing knowledge, networking and learning about new techniques in cancer and cell biology research from one another,” noted Dr. Victoria Freedman, associate dean for graduate studies in the biomedical sciences.
The daylong event featured four oral presentation sessions and two poster sessions a format that gave participants the opportunity to present their research and to receive feedback from their scientific peers.
Experience with Presenting
Symposium organizers and presentation winners. Organizers included Evangelia Loizou (far left), Einstein’s Samer Hanna (second from right, middle row) Neel Shah (far right) and Kevin O’Rourke (on right, in rear). Einstein students who won prizes were Matias Jaureguiberry-Bravo (on left, in rear) and Bassem Khalil (third from left, middle row).Einstein students presented two of the symposium’s 12 scientific talks, including the opening talk given by Edison Leung, a sixth-year M.D./Ph.D. student in the laboratory of Dr. John Condeelis. He described his interest in a process of breast cancer metastasis known as streaming, which is a special mode of migration that involves signaling between macrophages and tumor cells, and which allows tumor cells to migrate along collagen fibers toward blood vessels.
“I learned that people were impressed by the imaging techniques we used and to see metastasis in action,” noted Mr. Leung. “It was fun and especially interesting to see all the other research in the field.”
Among the “other research in the field” was work by Bassem Khalil, a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the laboratory of Dr. Johnathan Backer. Mr. Khalil discussed his work examining the role that G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) activation of p110β, a lipid kinase of the phosphoinositide-3 kinase (PI3K) family, plays in breast cancer metastasis. His talk earned him second place honors for “best oral presentations.”
A Chance to Network
Participants of the Graduate Student SymposiumResearch featured in the two poster sessions covered a broad range of the fields within cell and cancer biology, including cancer genetics, tumor microenvironment, cell signaling, epigenetics, immunology, stem cell biology and tissue regeneration. Einstein students presented five of the 38 research posters at the symposium, with the first place poster prize going to Matias Jaureguiberry-Bravo, who is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the laboratory of Dr. Joan Berman.
Mr. Jaureguiberry-Bravo studies the effect of the opiate derivative buprenorphine on the ability of HIV-infected cells to move across the blood brain barrier to cause problems within the central nervous system. “I was able to talk with a lot of other graduate students, and I received great feedback that I would not have gotten otherwise,” he said. “It was rewarding to discuss my research with others who are also doing work at the bench.”
The evening concluded with a reception in the Rockefeller University faculty club, where prizes were presented for top talks and posters. Event sponsors included Albert Einstein of College of Medicine Graduate Division of Biomedical Sciences, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine, the Rockefeller University and the ASCB.
Posted on: Tuesday, April 19, 2016