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
Hi Justin! Loving the blog so far! I think that you've settled upon a very interesting research project.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically I find your topic of the correlations between weight loss and stem cell operations. What do you expect might happen during your project, both the best and the worst? What do you mean as a "much more holistic approach?" I am intrigued by your methodology.
I hope you will enjoy your research and I'll continue to look forward to what's next!
Hi Spencer, I'm glad you like the blog. I think the worst case scenario would be finding potential correlations, but ones that aren't statistically significant. This essentially means the correlations could have happened simply due to random chance, in which case, I will be unable to draw conclude with any strong, backed-up findings. The best case scenario would be that I find strong, statistically significant correlation(s) between weight loss and another factor, which could potentially reveal when and how to monitor weight loss for stem cell transplant patients. Even finding no correlations would be okay, because it would show that weight loss is not really a good factor for determining the success of a stem cell transplant. As for my more "holistic approach", I found that previous studies on this topic dealt with a very specific kind of patient. For example, the group of study would be only females of a certain age group, undergoing a certain type of chemotherapy. I will be looking at a larger variety of patients for my project, which is why it's more "holistic".
DeleteHope this explains everything.
Hi Justin
ReplyDeleteThis is a great first post. The project is well-conceptualized and can boast a very clear plan of attack. I look forward to seeing what you uncover and how you present all of this information at the end.
Thanks Mr.Covalciuc!
DeleteJustin! I love the project. You definitely have a clear understanding of what you're going to be doing. My only question is what type of cancer are stem cell transplants most commonly seen? I don't know much about it, and I feel that the types of cancer you will be most heavily looking at will heavily influence your results.
ReplyDeleteThanks Evan! Stem cell transplants are most commonly used for cancers of the blood and immune system, such as lymphoma, leukemia, and multiple myeloma. Because the chemotherapy and radiation targets both cancer cells and healthy stem cells in a patient's bone marrow, it can potentially kill a lot of the patients own stem cells, causing them to stop reproducing blood cells. Stem cell transplants help replace the stem cells killed during chemo or radiation. Hope this helped!
DeleteHey Justin! Your project sounds super interesting and very relevant as research to try to treat cancer is becoming very relevant with increasing rates of cancer. I can't wait to read your future blog posts to see which correlations you find between weight loss and other factors associated with stem cell transplants. I am confused, though, on how your research differs from past stem cell research that you said in your post was inconclusive. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHi Jack! Looking back on it, inconclusive seems like the wrong word to use. Previous research I had looked usually dealt with a topic similar to mine but more specific. For example, some studies looked at weight loss prior to the transplant but not after. Others looked specifically at patients with myelodysplastic syndrome. These papers also presented different conclusions. Some claimed weight loss had limited clinical impact while others claimed it was associated with a decrease in overall survival. My study is a bit more broad. I'm looking at weight loss before and after the transplant and for a broader variety of patients. Hope that helps!
DeleteHey Justin! I find the topic you are researching on is super interesting and is a great topic to explore. I can't wait to see your results on the correlation between stem cell transplants and weight loss, and how it could possible to treat cancer. I am looking forward for you project. Although your inspiration is from the science classes, how were you inspired to pick stem cell transplants and its unique correlation with weight loss? If not with weight loss on seeing the correlation what other variable would have you chosen? Can't wait for your blogs!
ReplyDeleteHi Sruthi, I can't say that I chose this project specifically since I was allowed to choose from a list of different topics. Intuitively, losing weight after a major operation like a stem cell transplant would be bad right? I was unsure whether this claim was actually true or not and even if it was, losing how much weight was considered normal? At what point did it become dangerous? Since I was curious and I wanted to answer these questions, I chose this project. If I was looking at another variable, I think I would pick something that's more directly indicative of the success of the transplant. Maybe platelet count for example. Anyways, hope you enjoy the future blogs.
DeleteHello Justin! Your topic is intriguing and i look forward to seeing the results. Could you give some examples of the factors you will be studying?
ReplyDeleteHi Aditya. So the overarching goal is to if and how weight loss before and after the stem cell transplant can be used to predict the success of the operation. There are many factors that can predict the success of an operation (e.g. survival rates, relapse rates, graft versus host disease, etc.). So, I will be comparing weight loss to each of these variables individually and seeing if I find anything interesting. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!
DeleteHi Justin.
ReplyDeleteI was just wondering are there any factors in past patients that you will want to look at specifically or is it just the change in weight?
What's up Michael. I think you and Aditya were curious about the same thing so please read my response to his comment. If I didn't answer your question or you weren't asking the same thing, please reply to this comment!
DeleteHey Justin,
ReplyDeleteI think your topic is intriguing, especially with the rates of cancer going up. I can't wait until conclusion, however, are you only studying the change in weight due to stem cell transplants or are you going to look into other factors to why the patient may have lost weight. I'm looking forward to see your next blog.
Hi Andrew, since this is a retrospective study, I'm pretty much just looking at data. As a result, it will be impossible to pinpoint what exactly is causing each patient to lose weight. Statistically, the biggest way to counter this would be to use a large sample size and a very diverse sample size which I will be doing in my project. Hope I answered your question!
DeleteHello Justin,
ReplyDeleteYou have an awesome topic that relates to a current issue that needs to be solved quickly. I'm excited to see your project progress through the next 10 weeks. However, I'm a little confused on how you are going to deal with other factors that lead to the outcome of whether the cancer could be treated or not.
Hi Richard, I'm glad you like the topic. There are obviously other factors that impact the outcome of the operation but I'm trying to isolate specifically and compare it to other variables. There are ways of dealing with a diverse sample of patients such as blocking, where I group similar patients together. I'm not quite sure if I answered your question exactly so please reply if I didn't.
DeleteHi Justin!
ReplyDeleteI think that post-operation complications is a big issue that needs to have more attention. I am very excited learn about the correlation between stem-cell transplants and weightless and see the progress of your research for the next 10 weeks. I am looking forward to seeing your upcoming blog posts!
Thanks! I'm glad you're interested.
DeleteWow! Hey Justin! You've got a super cool project and I'm very interested in your research of if stem cell patients have a correlation with weight loss. Are you going to try and look at reasons for a correlation or a lack of a correlation as well? I can't wait to see where your research will take you!
ReplyDeleteHi Lauren, great question! Because my study is retrospective, I can only infer the reasons behind these correlations.The only thing I can truly determine is whether or not the correlation between weight loss and another variable is statistically significant. In another words, I'm not tracking the progress of each individual patient in the present, all I have is data. Therefore, I can't definitively conclude what caused certain outcomes. As for the second part of your question, a lack of correlation could possible be an important finding. This would reveal that weight loss cannot predict the success of a stem cell transplant outcome. Hope this helped and thanks for following my blog!
DeleteHey Justin. Your topic is very interesting. I would like to know the reason this topic interested you. Also how would this help people.
ReplyDeleteHi Akash, when this project was first suggested to me, immediately a bunch of questions popped into my head: did patients ever gain weight post-transplant? How much weight loss was normal and what was excessive,etc.? Say I am able to find a significant correlation between weight loss and a variable like overall survival, for example. In this case, doctors would be more easily be able to monitor weight prior to and after the transplant and determine what is acceptable. Hope that helped!
DeleteHi Justin!
ReplyDeleteI really like your topic and I think it has a lot of potential to help people since, as you said, this is a topic that has not been researched very much. What I don't really understand is how does a stem cell transplant work and what is the point of it? Looking forward to your next few posts! :)