Yale School of Medicine Features Student Research Day May 10

Yale School of Medicine will hold its annual Student Research Day, Tuesday, May 10, featuring a poster session and talks on projects ranging from HIV/AIDS and river blindness to heart disease and diabetes.

Yale School of Medicine is the only medical school in the country to require that all students pursuing an M.D. degree do a dissertation based on original research. This year, 72 students will share the results of their research in a poster session from noon–2 p.m. in the corridors of the Jane Ellen Hope Building, 315 Cedar Street.

As part of research day, Arthur Horwich, M.D., the Eugene Higgins Professor of Genetics and Pediatrics and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator will be the annual Farr Lecturer, honoring Lee Farr, M.D., a 1932 graduate of Yale School of Medicine. Horwich will discuss his groundbreaking work on protein folding in cells.

Five students have been chosen to give oral presentations about their work from 2–4 p.m. in Room 100 of the Jane Ellen Hope Building. The first four students are seeking M.D. degrees; the fifth, a combined M.D./Ph.D. degree.

The students, their research projects and faculty advisers are:

• Margo Simon, “HAART–Felt Prospects: Information, motivation and behavioral skills regarding incipient highly active antiretroviral therapy among bilinguial young adult students in Tugela Ferry, South Africa” with Gerald Friedland, M.D., in the Department of Pediatrics.
• Eric Poolman, “Evaluating targeted ivermectin distribution for controlling river blindness” with Michael Cappello, M.D., Department of Pediatrics.
• Suzanne Baron, “Dual mechanisms regulating AMPK kinase action in the ischemic heart” with Lawrence Young, M.D., in the Department of Internal Medicine.
• Raymond Lynch, “Suppression of MHC Class I and Class II in trophoblast cells” with Graeme Hammond, Department of Surgery.
• Joshua Klein, “On the function and survival of vasopressinergic neurons in diabetes,” with Stephen Waxman, M.D., Department of Neurology.

All events are open to the public and free of charge.