I am honored to be the recipient of this year’s Marguax’s Miracle Foundation research fellowship.

As a pediatric fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, I work daily with children who are fighting cancer. I first came to MSKCC as a medical student working in the Pediatric in-patient unit. At the time, I had already had some incredible experiences in the general field of medicine. However, within my first few days at MSKCC, I realized that working with children who have been diagnosed with cancer was exactly what I was going to pursue as a career, and to a large extent, do with my life. Working in this environment is truly inspiring to me; seeing a child’s ability to smile and laugh through many struggles is amazing and humbling.

During my time as a medical student at MSKCC, I began to understand what it means to be a pediatric oncologist: someone who gets to witness bravery on a daily basis from the youngest of patients, someone who can provide hope to a family given the worst possible news, and ultimately, someone who has the privilege to share the fight with these children and their families.

I decided I wanted to train at New York Presbyterian Hospital so that I could have my oncology rotations at MSKCC and ultimately become a fellow at MSKCC. I am currently finishing my fellowship at MSKCC, and am so grateful to all the children whom I’ve learned from along the way.

Presently, I work in the laboratory of Dr. Marc Ladanyi. Dr. Ladanyi is the director of the Department of Molecular Pathology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and has a specific interest in studying the biology of translocation-associated sarcomas, such as Ewing’s Sarcoma. This tumor contains a chromosomal mutation involving a transcription factor which leads to different genes being activated or deactivated in an individual cell. The inappropriate expression of these genes may in fact cause the cell to become cancerous or help maintain its malignant nature. My work involves discovering the genes that are “turned on” in this tumor directly by this aberrant transcription factor. I am utilizing a new technique called ChIP on chip to identify these genes in a high throughput manner. We hope that this will expedite the identification of previously unknown potential drug targets and crucial molecular pathways in Ewing’s Sarcoma.

Thank you for supporting our research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and for the opportunity to be a part of this event.