Jonathan Grima Hometown: I am a Maltese-American. I was born and raised in New York City with my three younger siblings. My parents and extended family, on the other hand, were all born and raised in Malta, a tiny, beautiful island country in the heart of the Mediterranean. My parents migrated from Malta to NYC(...)
Partnering Toward Discovery: Behind the Scenes
Posted by | Events and Happenings“[At Hopkins] we have the best medical students and the best graduate students in the world, and then we do everything in our power to separate them,” Roy Ziegelstein, vice dean for education, told the audience at the most recent Partnering Toward Discovery event on Jan. 22. There were few in the crowd who would(...)
Engineering Magic Bullets for Pancreatic Cancer
Posted by | Perspectives in ResearchIn a 1909 manuscript titled “Ueber den jetzigen Stand der Chemotherapie” (“About the Current State of Chemotherapy”), Nobel laureate Paul Ehrlich proclaimed, “We must learn to aim in a chemical sense.” What did he mean? Ehrlich was referring to his “magic bullet” theory of chemical specificity, the observation that certain drugs can eliminate disease-causing entities(...)
The Mity Genome
Posted by | A Day in the LifeThe Metro ride from Foggy Bottom to Bethesda took just about an hour door to door. Each morning, on my way to my first science internship at the National Institutes of Health, and each evening, back to my dorm at George Washington University, I spent my rides reading The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha(...)
How Business School Is Making Me a Better Doctor
Posted by | A Day in the LifeOlu Akinirimisi (pictured above, right) is a student in the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School’s Master of Science in Health Care Management program. This one-year degree is open to School of Medicine students between their second and third or third and fourth years of study. Find out more information about the program. I found myself(...)
A Life or Debt Decision: Tackling Unaffordable Drug Prices in Maryland
Posted by | Perspectives in ResearchI first became concerned about unaffordable drug prices when I did one of my first-year research rotations in a lab that studied the hepatitis C virus. The timing of my rotation was in the midst of the (continuing) hepatitis C epidemic and just after the development of Harvoni, an exorbitantly expensive cure ($50,000–$100,000). I learned(...)
Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me a Match
Posted by | A Day in the LifeFor fourth-year medical students across the country, the end of January means the culmination of months of struggling to keep suits unwrinkled, waiting at airport gates and sleeping on friends’ couches. This process did not just begin. Many students begin bracing themselves for The Match the moment they stepped into their first medical school class.(...)
Fuggetaboudit: Is Forgetfulness a Vice or a Virtue?
Posted by | Perspectives in ResearchWhere are my keys? What’s the name of that actor again? Did she say 3 or 4 o’clock? Forgetfulness is a part of life, albeit often an inconvenient one. If you find yourself wishing you would never forget anything, you may want to reconsider. Neuroscientists are beginning to uncover the molecular mechanisms of forgetting. With(...)
Dealing with Mental Health in Academia
Posted by | A Day in the LifeWorking in science can sometimes be an arduous, solitary journey. While being a graduate student is challenging enough, the pressure is ratcheted up when one is a postdoc. A postdoctoral fellow, or postdoc, conducts mentored research after obtaining a doctoral degree, prior to moving on to a more permanent position. Postdocs are expected to generate(...)
The Relationship Between Age and Blood Pressure: Another Way Your Lifestyle Can Impact Heart Health
Posted by | Perspectives in ResearchMany of us have likely experienced recent high blood pressure. Whether it’s from well-meaning but very inquisitive relatives, or the winding lines at the airport, most of us are acquainted with a temporary rise in blood pressure under stress. And unfortunately, high blood pressure (BP) is a common chronic issue for millions of people worldwide.(...)