News

MD/PhD candidate Nick Peterson is studying host-pathogen interactions in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology and is co-chair of the MD/PhD Curriculum Committee.

The Massachusetts Department of Education has named MD/PhD candidate Apurv Soni the UMass Medical School “29 Who Shine” honoree for 2021.

The GSBS Diversity Interest Group is “centered on sharing the voices of our fellow trainees and having their stories and experiences heard.”

Two MD/PhD students in the lab of Read Pukkila-Worley, MD, have each received Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards from the National Institute of Health.

Prompted by a health issue that his grandmother had, MD/PhD student Eric Ding is studying how smart watches monitor heart rhythms and detect atrial fibrillation in older adults. His work is supported by a three-year National Institutes of Health grant.

MD/PhD student Laël Ngangmeni, MBS, started school when she was 3 in her home country of Cameroon. A natural-born learner and curious thinker, Ngangmeni knew science was her calling.

MD/PhD student Benjamin Helfand is co-first author on a study published in the Journal of American Medical Association Network Open that examines the frequency of COVID-19 positive older adults presenting to the emergency department with delirium.

School of Medicine and Graduate School of Nursing students explored a range of public health issues through population health clerkships and presented their work virtually.

Students in the Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program and Initiative for Maximizing Student Development of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences gathered on Zoom recently to practice their quick-thinking skills through workshops in improvisation.

A new four-year, $2 million grant will allow Silvia Corvera, MD, to learn more about whether the development and function of two types of fat cells differ in people with type 2 diabetes, and may help explain what causes diabetes and obesity.

MD/PhD candidate Kevin Gao has received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Predoctoral Fellowship to study a rare autoinflammatory disease in infants called STING-associated vasculopathy with onset in infancy.

A research letter published in JAMA Internal Medicine, co-authored by UMass Medical School MD/PhD student Benjamin Helfand, reports that older adults were likely to be excluded from more than 50 percent of COVID-19 clinical trials and 100 percent of vaccine trials initiated early in the pandemic.

Jill Moore, PhD’18, Zhiping Weng, PhD, and MD/PhD students Michael Purcaro and Henry Pratt are lead authors on the latest publication of data from the ambitious ENCODE project. 

MD/PhD student Eric Romo received the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Predoctoral Fellowship to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

David McManus, MD, and MD/PhD candidate Apurv Soni developed a tool to predict risk of severe illness in COVID-19 patients.

A new study by a team of UMass Medical School researchers, led by Jordan Smith, MD/PhD candidate, has identified a new therapeutic target in hepatoblastoma, a rare, primarily pediatric liver cancer.

As medical professionals are working to care for patients during the COVID-19 pandemic and critical supplies of protective gear are running low, students in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at UMass Medical School produced nearly 130 gallons of hand sanitizer to help sustain local hospitals.

School of Medicine 2020 class members Lauren Colwell, Britney Atwater and Ashley Matthew were matched to their specialty residency programs in January. Colwell is going into ophthalmology; Atwater and Matthew urology.

The 15th annual Physician-Scientist Retreat at UMass Medical School shined a light on students working to complete both medical and biomedical sciences doctoral degrees through the Medical Scientist Training Program.

According to new research from the lab of Jeanne Lawrence, PhD, differentiated human cells retain the ability to undergo chromosome silencing in response to XIST, a naturally occurring “off switch” for the female X-chromosome.