Week 6

With only one week remaining in the city, I am beginning to feel the rush to do everything at once but that is not all a bad thing.   In the clinic this week, I had the opportunity to shadow several doctors in the radiation oncology ward where I got a complete overview of how radiation treatment is prepared, designed, and delivered to patients in order to precisely target tumor regions of interest.  Beyond the minutiae of preparations, I was impressed by how sophisticated the radiation machines have become in order to deliver precise doses of radiation to very specific geometrical regions of the body.

Regarding my project, I have continued to organize the data and develop a matlab script which will be able to evaluate the impact of copper depletion on blood serum markers which are representative of remodeling within the tumor microenvironment.  By observing changes in the blood levels of lysyl oxidase, collagen-breakdown and collagen formation markers (such as matrix metalloproteinases), and correlating these markers with the relative health of the patients (marked by instances of recurrence and metastases), we may gain some insight into why these early copper depletion trials have been so successful.

Otherwise, I am continuing to enjoy New York City as I’ve explored many of the best coffee shops in the area (the ideal setting for data analysis), and I am looking forward to going to see the Yankees play tomorrow afternoon.

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