Week 8: Teagan

In my final immersion week, I got a lot done and wrapped up my project! For my research, I edited my 3D print design once again to add a little divet to better cradle the body of the mouse. However, upon initial designing, I increased the overall thickness of the base to have enough volume to create a deep divet, but this increase in depth affected image quality. In the Faxitron image, you could see the structural elements inside the base, which made analyzing the mouse limbs difficult. So I iterated one final 3D print design at the original base thickness with a shallower divet into the base. I didn't have time to run that print through the Faxitron before I left, but I left it with the Bostrom lab for them to test later in the month. I also spent some time in the OR with Dr. Bostrom. The patients he saw this week had a lot of health conditions that had to be monitored to ensure that they didn't cause any negative surgical effects. These conditions included cardiac history, obesity, and diabetic status. It was interesting to observe how these extra complications were handled by the team in the OR to ensure a smooth surgical operation. Lastly, I spent time preparing for two presentations that I had during this final week, one for the immersion program itself and another for the Bostrom lab meeting. It was gratifying to be able to share the work that I did this summer with others. I learned a lot from this immersion experience. There are many skills and insights that I will take with me back to Ithaca to help further my research! 

Week 8: Anais

 In my last week of immersion I got to observe some particularly tricky surgeries.  In the hysterectomy we observed, the patient had a c section scar that seemed to make it difficult to find where the uterus ended.  Additionally,  we observed an abdominal myomectamy.  This case had the largest fibroids I have seen in my time at Weill Cornell.  It must have been such a relief post surgery.  I also got to attend the clinic this week which further provided insight on the surgeries we have seen.  It was a particularly busy clinic day and I got to see a variety of birth control insertions and hysteroscopies.  Overall, this summer has been very enlightening and great to see how some of the things I have been researching translate in a clinical setting.  I am excited to take all I have learned and apply it to my research in Ithaca and I hope to continue to collaborate with Dr. Fenster.  

Week 8: Amelia

 Final week! At the beginning of this week, I prepared for and presented on my summer immersion experience. Trying to fit everything into 4 minutes was very challenging, but it forced me to reflect on the material and how to condense the background of the project. On Tuesday I also had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Osborne, who is doing clinical work with neurosteroids and postpartum depression. Since my lab is interested in getting into this topic, getting the chance to chat with her and ask her questions was so helpful! Wednesday was the last day of surgeries I was able to observe, and I got to see a deep brain stimulation stage 2 surgery (where they implant the battery and connect it) and a battery replacement surgery. Finally, we did 2p calcium imaging for our Sorcs3 project, but with PRISM implants this time, instead of cranial windows. The PRISM implants allowed us to get many more cells in our field of view! Next steps will be to edit the 2p suite code to ensure the ROIs are being detected correctly and statistically analyze our results. It was exciting to be able to see a good portion of a project through in the 8 weeks we were here, and I am definitely bringing a lot of knowledge back to Ithaca. 

Week 8: Aidan

 Final week in NYC - lots of progress. Printed two platforms for magnets (a repeat of the flat halbach device, and then the first radial device). Built the flat device again, this time using improved construction techniques based on what happened with the first (used clamps to let epoxy set between the 3rd and 4th sets of magnets). The hypothesis was that with better construction/placement of the magnets, the field should be more strongly aligned in the target direction and get closer to the predicted strength of 87 mT 1cm from the surface. Oddly, the magnetic field measurements are ~30% weaker on the new flat device compared to the old device that had magnets misplaced. However, I had measured the old device and Aldana measured the new device, so it's possible that the difference is due to user-to-user variability, since the measuring tool does not have any guides (you have to eyeball 0.5 cm based on a ruler, and the measuring probe is ~0.2cm thick, so depending on which part you align with the ruler it could be 0.3cm to 0.7cm from the surface of the magnet. Additionally, orientation of the measurement tool matters). I also had the opportunity to observe more surgical cases on Wednesday, which were a deep brain stimulator stage 1 implantation (electrodes), followed by a deep brain stimulator stage 2 (battery) implantation.

Week 8 - Kirtana

 This week I primarily worked on finishing up my lung cancer project. I prepared the lung cancer incidence and PLCO risk graphs for the population, and also started working on developing my own model. This is currently a work in progress and I will continue it after immersion. 

Summer immersion has truly been an enriching experience and I learnt a significant amount about the clinical side of biomedical engineering. Shadowing surgeries, performing image segmentation, performing data analysis all led to me obtaining new skills. My favorite part of the experience was getting to operate a MRI machine. While it was interesting to use the machine without being a patient, I understood the challenges that are present in medical device development in terms of user accessibility. Considering that my PhD is on point of care device development, I believe there is a lot I can take from this experience. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to go through the summer immersion program and I am looking forward to using my newly gained clinical knowledge in the lab. 

Week 8: Pei Wen

This week marks the end of our summer immersion program. Most strikingly in OR, Anais and I observed a myomectomy with the largest fibroids we have seen thus far, roughly the size of a coconut. The larger fibroids were accompanied by a multitude of smaller ones. We were shocked to learn that Dr. Fenster has had cases where the fibroids were even larger. I cannot imagine the pain that the patient must have felt living with the fibroids as the fibroids were pushing on their other organs. This surgery sparks my curiosity further on the prevalence of fibroids among certain populations and the factors that contribute to their growth in severe cases such as the one we observed. I am grateful for the opportunity I had this summer to shadow Dr. Fenster in her surgeries and patient visits, to gain perspective in clinical needs and gaps pertaining to our field, and to learn how present and future technologies can be applied to improve patient care. 

Week 8 : Adil

This week was good mix of research and time in the OR. I continued to work on the pipeline we started last week and ran more RNA datasets from the ICSBCS biobank to compute immune cell fraction across samples. I also analyzed the TCRseq data of the pooled trovo sample and combined the results from the scRNA analysis I did last week. This analysis has helped us to optimize our experimental protocols (initial sample size and initial cell count) for the upcoming trovo experiments. Later in the week I attended a presentation by a sub-intern working with Dr. Newman on the various factors that come into play in decision making in breast surgical oncology and how clinical trials have shaped these protocols over the years. I also attended a didactic session by Dr. Newman on systemic therapy for breast cancer. In the OR, I shadowed Dr. Newman for two lumpectomies, one sentinel lymph node biopsy and a ductal node excision. Overall the summer immersion was a great learning experience - both on the clinical and research fronts. I look forward to applying the learnings from my immersion experience to my ongoing projects.