Week 8: Allison Goehl

 In my final week of immersion, I spent more time shadowing Dr. Beal, a radiation oncologist specializing in brain cancer and metastases. Some of the patients she met with this week were ones I saw last week, but had since started receiving radiation or received additional fractions. It surprised me how quickly things progress in this field. Patients are sometimes able to start radiation within a week of being seen by Dr. Beal for the first time, and I didn't expect that fast of a turnaround. It was also very interesting to see MRIs of patients before, immediately after, and months after treatment and see how the tumor has changed, and then to see patients in the clinic and hear how their symptoms have changed. I also saw the maps used to plan treatment with either stereotactic radiosurgery or gamma knife surgery, and it is fascinating to see how precise treatment can be. Prior to arriving this summer, I was only familiar with full body radiation, but the techniques used by Dr. Beal can treat tumors deep within the brain without impacting surrounding healthy tissue. I saw multiple patients undergo a simulation, where a mask is made to immobilize the head as they receive radiation and a CT scan is performed so the radiation treatment can be designed. This has been one of my favorite parts of immersion, so I was very happy to spend additional days shadowing Dr. Beal this week.

In the lab, I've been working on data analysis for the five day coculture Eleana and I performed last week with cytotoxic T cells and irradiated glioblastoma and triple negative breast cancer cells. We did not have time to optimize the staining, so some cells are too bright, some are too dim, and some imaging locations are not usable due to the fluorescence obscuring all other details in the area. However, it looks like initially the cancer cell population declined as the T cell population expanded, but over the next few days the cancer cell population grew to overtake the entire area, which was interesting to see.