Congratulations to Christian Capitini, MD, and Paul Sondel, MD, PhD, who were recently awarded a joint St. Baldrick’s Summer Fellowship worth $5,000 to fund two medical students in their respective labs this summer.
Tara Gavcovich, a graduate of Duke University and current medical student at George Washington University School of Medicine, will work in Dr. Capitini’s lab on the project, “Improving allogeneic bone marrow transplant for neuroblastoma,” with the goal of using models of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (alloHSCT) to prevent graft-versus-host disease, while enhancing graft-versus-tumor effects against neuroblastoma.
Maureen Riegert, a graduate of University of Notre Dame and a current UW medical student, will work in Dr. Sondel’s lab on the project entitled, “The Effect of Radiation on Tumor Cell Immune Susceptibility,” where she will investigate the effect of radiation on the expression of immune susceptibility markers in the GD2-expressing NXS2 neuroblastoma cell line. These experiments will allow a more in-depth understanding of the potential synergy of radiation and immunotherapy.