MED Students Chosen as American Cancer Society Fellows
Two MED students did cancer research this summer as ACS junior research fellows.
Two School of Medicine students, Ryan Lynch (MED’10) and Paul Romesser (MED’10), were named 2007 Betty Lea Stone American Cancer Society (ACS) Junior Research Fellows. They spent the summer working in cancer research laboratories.
Each received a $4,500 grant for a 10-week fellowship from the ACS’s New England Division. The fellowship, started in 1979 by the family of Betty Lea Stone, a Boston-area volunteer and supporter of ACS’s research program, enables four first-year medical students to work with a principal investigator on a summer project that applies to cancer prevention or treatment.
Romesser and Lynch have worked in cancer research labs before and saw the fellowship as an opportunity to continue their work.
Lynch worked at Boston Children’s Hospital, researching the gene DSCR1, found on chromosome 21, and its possible role in preventing tumor growth. “The fellowship really fortified in my mind the notion that I want to make research part of my career,” he says. “Clinical research challenges me to think critically about science.”
Romesser worked under the guidance of Gerald Denis, a MED assistant professor of pharmacology and medicine, to determine the origins of cancer. His group studied the differences between proteins in healthy cells and those in non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer cells. Romesser hopes his work will help other researchers identify the areas that need more intensive research.
Both Lynch and Romesser will continue their research projects this semester.
Rebecca McNamara can be reached at ramc@bu.edu.