Hello and welcome to all who are reading my blog!
My name is Justin Tai and I am currently a senior attending BASIS Scottsdale. From the beginning of February to the end of April, I will be interning at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix. Under the supervision of hematologist, Dr.Sproat, I will be conducting a research project related to weight loss and its connections with the outcomes of stem cell transplants. Although learning in a classroom setting is rewarding, working in a lab setting provides a much more realistic expectation of how scientists really work. After taking biology and chemistry and statistics classes all throughout high school, I will finally be able to apply this knowledge in a real-world setting.
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| Here is a picture of my site! |
In a world where cancer cases are projected to be rapidly rising, the success of operations like stem cell transplants are crucial. Intuitively, a sick patient losing weight after a large operation seems unhealthy. In reality, cases are much more nuanced. Past research on the topic of weight loss and stem cell transplants is largely inconclusive or only draws conclusions for a very narrow scope of patients. My research project will be taking a much more holistic approach. To break it down, I will be extracting data from past stem cell transplant patients records, and looking at their weights before and after the operation. Then, I will compare the weight loss to a variety of factors that are indicators of how successful the stem cell transplant was, such as the survival rates of the patients, cancer relapse rates, etc. By the end of the project, I should be able to find interesting correlations between weight loss and these variables and hopefully draw some conclusions. For more information on the specifics of the project, check out my senior research project proposal which is linked on the side.
The project will be broken up into ten weeks, as you can see from the headers above. Each week, I will post updates and reply to any comments. I'm really looking forward to getting some feedback so feel free to leave any questions in the comments and follow this blog. Also, check out the blogs of other senior research participants in my blogging group, which are linked on the side.
I look forward to blogging and hope you guys enjoy my blog!
Justin
