My name is Julio Silva. I’m a Biochemistry major and I’ll be
starting my senior year and my second year of MARC this coming fall at UCLA. Like
other MARC-ers, I am also in Cambridge/Boston, MA under the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute (HHMI) Exceptional Research Opportunities Program (EXROP). This week will mark the fifth week of my summer experience and I must say that it has so far been scientific heaven! I am doing HIV research at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), MIT and Harvard. The institute is a collaborative partnership between these three institutions and does cutting edge HIV research with the goal of effectively eradicating the AIDS epidemic. I’m doing my research in Dr. Bruce Walker’s lab, director of the Ragon Institute. My project is on the role of miRNAs during acute HIV infection, particularly their role in causing large bystander CD4T-cell (the target white blood cell of HIV) depletion. I’m learning a lot of cool techniques, like flow cytometry and many miRNA-based techniques and I’m working with fresh human tissue that is sent to us straight from MGH! My results have so far been promising and my experience in general is amazing! The collaboration between these institutions and from the people that work here is one of the things that make this place so great. It’s like a giant team effort that comes from several arms to reach an ultimately unifying goal. The type of work that gets done here, even my own work, could not get done so efficiently if this type of collaboration did not exist. My direct mentor, Dr. Juan Cubillos, too has taught me so much within these four weeks and has given me an enormous amount of his time. I am very grateful to have him.
I’ve also had the opportunity to go on rounds with Dr.
Walker at MGH and I was able to see some amazing cases and even rare diseases
like Gorham’s disease, a vanishing bone disease. He treated me like a med student and he
taught me some valuable, essential information about what it means to be a
doctor. His patients love him because he profoundly cares about them. He goes
on several trips to South Africa as well every year and I casually mentioned my
interest in going there perhaps for next summer…. We’ll see how this turns out
:)
Well, time to get back to figuring out why I suddenly got an increased amount of CD4 T-cells nine days after infection compared to day 3…. I think I must have gated wrong the first time… :(
I’ll share more soon!
Julio
3 comments:
It was great to see you and everyone else at Harvard this summer! Are you going to give a final update on what it is like to be in scientific heaven? It seems like your PI was a perfect match for you and your career goals.
Best, DDS
Hi Julio,
Are you the Julio Silva that graduated from Sunnyside High School? If so, I'm glad to see you are pursuing a science degree. Do you remember your old (well...not too old) AP Biology teacher?? That would be me!! Just wanted to say Hi. You need to meet Taylor Brown, who is also in the MARC program. She is also a former student.
Happy studying :)
Ms. Altschuler! Yes, I do remember you!!! Thank you! Yes, I am planing to pursue an MD-PhD. I loved your class and I must say it was one of the most inspiring classes I took in high school. I still have my old biology book! You really helped me learn the fundamentals of biology and I am very grateful for that. I hope you are well! Are you still at Sunnyside?
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