Adventures from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Medical research is not only conducted by professors in the hallowed halls of educational institutions. Other notable research bodies include privately funded research institutions, pharmaceutical companies, government, and nonprofit organizations. Industry labs have a targeted approach, often searching for a drug to treat a specific disease or to address a particularly lucrative problem in medical(...)
“You’ve heard about some of these pet projects, they really don’t make a whole lot of sense, and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.” -Sarah Palin As a graduate student in a lab(...)
Each year, the Johns Hopkins graduate programs organize a white coat ceremony for graduate students to recognize the completion of their graduate board oral examinations (GBOs). For graduate students this test is the gatekeeper to our training; it transitions us from students to Ph.D. candidates and marks the commencement of our thesis work. The students(...)
What is artificial intelligence today? While innovators and philosophers debate the consequences and likelihood of C-3PO or HAL appearing on Earth, we have already accepted a variety of forms of artificial intelligence in our daily lives. Self-driving cars are proving to be successful on our streets, and over 90 percent of flight time on airplanes(...)
“If getting drunk was how people forgot they were mortal, then hangovers were how they remembered.” ― Matt Haig, The Humans Matt Haig’s quote exemplifies the dreaded and inevitable consequence of a night of heavy drinking: hangovers. While the scientific community condemns drunkenness as a threat to individual health and public safety, drinking and hangovers are tales(...)
Aloha! Being a medical student has its perks. Over the past semester, my medical school experiences have taken me across the country. I’ve traveled to various conferences in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston, and this month, Hawaii, where I attended the American Medical Association (AMA) Interim Meeting in Honolulu. The AMA is the largest coalition of(...)
If you’re in the process of applying to graduate school, by now you’ve either submitted your applications or are gearing up to do so. After clicking the “submit” button, you may feel a wave of emotions - exhilaration, dread, anxiety, or relief. I distinctly remember that when I submitted my applications, the principal emotion I(...)
“Night science is a sort of workshop of the possible. … ” François Jacob While we may be living in the “century of biology,” biomedical science exists in a climate where risk-taking is discouraged. That’s according to Keith Yamamoto, Ph.D., chancellor of science policy and strategy at the University of California, San Francisco. On Nov.(...)
“It is absolutely impossible!” While the student next to me was the one to vocalize an incredulous attitude, everyone was thinking it. We were in a workshop provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF), as NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program fellows, and we were tasked with explaining the importance of our research to someone with(...)
My fifth grade world — a typical one concerned with classes, friends, recess, lunch menus and dreading middle school — forever changed one day, when I sat on the ABC-patterned carpet in my classroom and watched my favorite teacher hide tears from the class. I first met her in third grade. She was always peppy(...)