The 2022 Annual Pathology and Immunology Trainee Research Symposium was held on Friday, April 22 as an in-person meeting with a hybrid option for remote attendees. The Program Committee hosted an exciting program, including a keynote address, invited speakers, as well as platform and poster presentations by the trainees. Recordings from the scientific program will be available soon at this site.
The keynote speaker, Maria Elena Bottazzi, Ph.D., FASTMH, associate dean, National School of Tropical Medicine, and co-director, Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, gave an inspirational talk and was recognized at the event for her lifelong contributions to developing vaccines for infectious diseases including COVID-19.
Members of the faculty, Drs. Peyman Dinarvand, Amir Navaei and William Decker presented their work.
Trainees from basic sciences and clinical residents and fellows presented their work at the symposium. Trainees received awards for the best oral and poster presentation of their research work. In addition, two medical students – Brandon Taylor and Maria Chen – were recognized at the symposium with the Stuart A. Wallace awards given by the Chair, Dr. Martin M. Matzuk.
Oral Presentation Award Recipients
Basic Research
Feiyan Mo - Engineering T-Cells to Prevent Graft-versus-Host Disease and Leukemia Relapse following Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation (Faculty Mentor: Maksim Mamonkim)
Clinical Resident
Kelsey Hummel - Utilization of Endoscopic Ultrasound Fine Needle Aspiration Biopsy (EUS-FNA) for Management of Pancreatic Lesions in Pediatrics: A Single Site 10 Year Study (Faculty Mentor: Norma Quintanilla)
Clinical Fellow
Annie Garcia - Comprehensive NTRK Fusion Detection by Next-Generation Sequencing for Identifying Patients Eligible for TRK Targeted Therapy: An Assessment of Diagnostic Utility (Faculty Mentor: Angshumoy Roy)
Poster Presentation Award Recipients
Basic Research
Janel Peterson - MBNL Loss of Function in Visceral Smooth Muscle as a Model of Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1 (Faculty Mentor: Tom Cooper)
Clinical Resident
Hanna Siatecka - Experience of Using BRAF V600E Immunohistochemistry in Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma with Extrathyroidal Extension (Faculty Mentor: Ya Xu)
Clinical Fellow
Yan Chen Wongworawat - Frequent detection of CBFA2T3/GLIS2 fusion and RAM phenotype with possible novel relationship between RAM phenotype and aberrant cytoplasmic CD3 expression in pediatric non-Down syndrome acute megakaryoblastic leukemia (Faculty Mentor: Kevin Fisher)
Trainee Research Committee
Drs. Thomas A. Cooper, Choladda V. Curry, William Decker, Sridevi Devaraj, Sagar Dhamne, Martin M. Matzuk, Angshumoy Roy, Jun Teruya, Neda Zarrin-Khameh, Chief Residents (Drs. Hummel and Siatecka), Associate Chief Residents (Drs. Gustafson and Levett).
Special note of appreciation to Yvetter Boney and Rosario Guzman for assistance with meeting planning and to Kristin Banaszak and Julian Gaton for meeting logistics.
