Graduating medical school students to showcase their thesis research on May 2

All departments at the School of Medicine will cancel their classes and conferences during the afternoon of Tuesday, May 2 so members of the community can attend Student Research Day, the annual showcase of thesis studies by members of the graduating class.

Since 1839, Yale School of Medicine has required that students seeking an M.D. write a dissertation based on original research in order to graduate — a requirement found at few other medical schools today, according to Dr. John N. Forrest Jr., professor of internal medicine and director of the Office of Student Research. The M.D. thesis is designed to develop critical judgment, habits of self-education, and application of the scientific method to medicine. The students work closely with full time faculty on their projects and receive stipends to help them complete their research.

Posters and presentations

Student Research Day 2017 will begin at noon with a poster session where soon-to-be-graduates will present the results of their research. This will take place in the lobby of the Anlyan Center, 300 Cedar St.

This will be followed at 2 p.m. by a plenary scientific session chaired by Robert Alpern, Dean of the Medical School, featuring five winners of prize-winning theses, who will give oral reports on their research. This will take place in the Anlyan Center auditorium.

The students, their projects, and their thesis advisers are:

• Jake Wang: “UV-Induced Somatic Mutations Elicit a Functional T Cell Response in the YUMMER1.7 Mouse Melanoma Model” (Dr. Marcus Bosenberg, Dermatology)

• Jason Weed: “Development of an in vitro platform for screening targeted molecular agents for cutaneous T cell lymphoma, and the Hansel and Gretel immunosurveillance algorithm” (Dr. Michael Girardi, Dermatology)

• Ravi Gupta: “Generic Drug Policy in the U.S. — Impact on Drug Prices and Shortages” (Dr. Joseph Ross, Internal Medicine)

• Jack Turban: “Transgender Youth: Evolving Treatment Paradigms” (Dr. Andres Martin, Child Study Center)

• Muhamed Hadzipasic: “Cell and Circuit Studies in a Mouse Model of ALS” (Arthur Horwich, Genetics)

Farr Lecture

The day will conclude at 4:30 p.m. with the 2017 Farr Lectureship, “Some Reflections on Sharing Life with a Laboratory,” presented by Dr. Eric G. Neilson, vice president for medical affairs and the Lewis Landsberg Dean at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Now in its 30^th year, the Farr Lectureship has become the most prestigious lectureship at Yale Medical School. It is named in honor of the late Dr. Lee E. Farr, a 1933 graduate of the school.

Neilson’s research has furthered understanding the cell fate of fibroblasts in fibrogenesis, the expression of the nephritogenic immune response, the biochemical characterization of nephritic antigens, and the mechanisms of renal hypertrophy. He has published over 300 scientific articles, reviews, commentaries, editorials, and books, and co-edited, with Dr. William Couser, a major medical textbook titled “Immunological Renal Diseases.” His work has been funded by The National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, and the March of Dimes.

He also is an active teacher of clinical medicine and has trained nearly 40 graduate students or postdoctoral fellows in his laboratory. He has a special interest in the training of physician-scientists; has edited a book titled “What’s Past is Prologue — The Personal Stories of Women in Science at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine” to help mentor women interested in biomedical research; and helped initiate the Vanderbilt Prize for women scientists.

A medical graduate of the University of Alabama in Birmingham, Neilson trained in internal medicine and nephrology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. After 23 years at UPenn as the C. Mahlon Kline Professor of Medicine, chief of the Renal-Electrolyte and Hypertension Division, and director of the Penn Center for Molecular Studies of Kidney Diseases, he moved to the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine to serve for 12 years as the Hugh Jackson Morgan Professor and chair of the Department of Medicine.

Neilson is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and the Association of Professors of Medicine, among other professional organizations. He has been a member of the scientific advisory board of Biostratum Inc., and NephroGenex, Inc., and holds two patents. He is the former editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, the leading kidney journal in the world.

His numerous honors include the Distinguished Professor Award from the Association of Subspecialty Professors, now renamed the “Eric G. Neilson, M.D., Distinguished Professor Award.” He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016.