Medical and Pharmacy Students Present Innovative Research at Symposium

“The study is important because baseball players, especially pitchers, are at great risk of injury in the upper extremity, specifically at the elbow joint,” said Chavez. “It’s a very common and costly injury. By expanding what has been previously studied in order to better understand these injuries, such as looking at local and systemic physiologic stress markers as opposed to throwing mechanics alone, we can gain a better understanding as to why these injuries happen and maybe provide ways to better prevent them.”

Selecting the subject

As the students are preparing for this summer research project, they are encouraged to pursue projects which align with their interests. Many students create their own projects based on what they are learning in the classroom, while others use personal interests or social issues to seek out existing studies that they can expand on.

Each student is matched with a faculty member who acts as the principal investigator (PI). The PI supervises the student's work, providing guidance, encouragement, and support to help the student develop a question and explore possible answers.

Samuel Ward, P.T., Ph.D., professor in the Departments of Orthopaedics, Radiology and Bioengineering and vice dean for research for the School of Medicine, served as the PI for Chavez’s work.

“Human performance and wellness are becoming increasingly important in biomedical research. On a medical school campus, this is a departure from traditional disease-focused research, but equally important as we envision healthier and longer life spans for our community,” said Ward. “Baseball is an interesting research framework, as the physics of elite performance is captivating for everyone. Our unique ability to layer state-of-the-art biologic and physiologic measurements onto traditional biomechanical measurements, will provide athletes, coaches and medical staff with critical information related to training, injury risk and recovery.”

Both Chavez and Ward are enthusiastic about next steps for this project, which was completed with support from the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, noting that they have received interest from NCAA, minor and major league baseball to potentially incorporate this type of research longitudinally to further identify trends in physiologic markers and how the information may apply in actual game scenarios.

“This project line is already very active and well-funded, with players, coaches, medical and training staff engaged throughout the year,” said Ward. “This is a really unique academic opportunity- athletes and students from all majors on campus can get engaged in the process.”

Encouraging teamwork and discovery

For Safia Hassan, second-year medical student, her project was built on her existing interest in using artificial intelligence (AI) in health care.

“Prior to medical school, I worked in health care consulting and was involved in projects that sought to apply AI in health care,” said Hassan. “But those projects focused on using AI to improve business processes and optimize workflow efficiency whereas my summer research explored applications of AI in treatment decisions and to improve patient outcomes. I thought this was a meaningful way to take my prior work experience a step further and delve into the clinical space.”

Hassan’s project was a retrospective study evaluating the ability of a machine learning model to predict treatment sensitivity among patients with ER+ HER2- advanced breast cancer.  

“This was one of the first of its kind using a machine learning tool that can potentially perform better than a human to really sort out this big data that we've been getting from our patients’ tumor analysis reports,” said Kay Yeung, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of medicine and Hassan’s PI for this project. “There are many genes that are altered. We don't always know which one is more important. So, using a model like this can really incorporate the data on a personal level for our patients, which then allows the clinician to have a truly individualized conversation of what treatment should be given and why. This allows us to step into the next phase of precision oncology. We’re not just matching one drug to one gene, but rather one drug or maybe a different type of drug, according to the entire tumor characteristics and profile.”

In addition to potentially laying the groundwork for new research and treatment options, the Summer Research Symposium is designed to foster innovation and collaboration between students and faculty.

“I think it's always important to involve different level of trainees from different backgrounds and interests because everybody brings a different perspective,” said Yeung. “Safia in particular asked many different questions that we didn’t think of. Her perspective really reflects how things are in the clinic where we're facing different patients with different backgrounds and different experiences. She helped to articulate what the project means to us and can mean to our patients and the community.”

As part of the Summer Research Symposium, a panel of School of Medicine faculty members select outstanding posters for recognition. The posters are judged on the following criteria: scientific merit, clarity, visual impact. Winners were Danielle Reed, MS2, first place; Brian Cui, MS2, second place; and Alex Gustilo, MS2 third place.

The Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion awarded two prizes for excellence in empathy and compassion research and superior communication of the narrative of the project. Winners were Kiley Steinbeck McCombs, MS2, first place and Sabrina Chriqui, MS2, second place, both are participants in the Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion Sanford Scholar Award Program.

UC San Diego Library recognized posters for excellence in the use of cited literature. Winners from the School of Medicine were Sacha Moufarrej, MS2, first place and Ritvik Illindala, MS2 second place. Winners from the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences were Allie Spong, P2, first place and Madeleine Oblea, P2, second place.