Week 7: MJ

This week, I went to our weekly immersion meetings, where fellow students presented the research and shadowing that they have been doing this summer at the hospitals. I also attended HSS Research-in-progress talk, where a post-doc presented her work on how the activation of hedgehog and RAS-ERK signaling pathways in fibroadipogenic progenitors causes fracture nonunion. I then attended the  Rheumatology department journal club, where two different Rheumatologists presented papers in their field. As for my research project, I continued to analyze the bulk RNA-sequencing dataset that I have been working on. This dataset is from mouse CD8+ T cells with a human version of STAT3 knocked-in to make the data more relevant to the human pathology of IBM (inclusion body myositis). The STAT3 knocked-in also have specific mutations, both from literature and from actual IBM patients. I seek to understand whether these mutations incur an advantage for CD8+ T cells, which have a greater proportion than CD4+ T cells in IBM patients and may cause some of the IBM pathology. I continued to analyzed this dataset and add the data to my own immersion presentation next week. This week, I also shadowed Dr. Fernandez as he treated patients with various forms of myositis and Lupus.