Week 7- Grant

And that’s a wrap. Sorry for the late post but moving from New York City back to Ithaca has occupied most of my time. Seven weeks went by extremely quickly, but I learned so much from a clinical perspective about mechanical circulatory support (MCS) devices. My work at Cornell in Ithaca, which mostly concerns clotting in these devices, presents itself as only a subset of issues plaguing the MCS industry. I learned about everything from right heart failure and pulmonary hypertension to non-surgical ways to manage patients with potential adverse events.

My project at Montefiore Hospital completed the enrollment and 15-day follow-up of a third patient in the Sildenafil to Prevent (STOP) Clots study. Again, the patient takes either Sildenafil or a placebo, and a device measures the patient’s response to vasodilation/nitric oxide release. My project will be presented as a case report as this is only the third enrollee of a potential 62. Stay tuned for future insight from Dr. Saeed’s group.  

It was great having an end of the year celebration with Kelly and Dr. Prince. In between good food and conversation, we all shared our most interesting experience during the summer immersion. It was great to see people who had an intellectually stimulating summer both through their clinical rounds and through their research projects. We were also able to see where our projects overlapped, and I can most definitely see the potential for collaborations between lab groups in Ithaca as well as potential new collaborations at Weill. I’d like to extend my gratitude to the BME Department, my advisor, Kelly, and Dr. Prince for allowing us all to participate in such a rewarding program.