I had a great first week at the Mayo Clinic! Instead of immediately starting to collect data, I found it was more beneficial obtain more background knowledge about my topic. Specifically, I was able to learn more about the basics behind stem cells, how stem cells develop into cancerous, the impact and symptoms of these cancers, and some important chemo/ post-transplant drugs. Because of this experience, I'll be able to understand my data better and the reasons behind the weight loss.
To go into a little more detail, the week started off when I first learned exactly how I would be collecting data. My on-site mentor, Dr. Sproat, showed me an example of navigating through a patient record in order to obtain, a patient's body weight prior to the transplant, one hundred days after, and a year after. However, it wouldn't make sense to just to look at every patient's weight loss in the exact same way. Therefore, to measure weight loss, I will use either Body Mass Index, because it takes into account both a patient's weight and height, or body weight percentage lost. If time permits, I may even look into both, but this will be decided later on.
I think the highlight of this week was getting to see patients, and more specifically learning about some drugs used for treatment. When breaking down the different leukemias, Dr.Sproat gave me a very memorable analogy comparing bone marrow to a garden. Stem cells are equivalent to the seeds in the garden, which would eventually grow into plants and produce fruits (your white blood cells, red blood cells, platelets, T lymphocytes, and B lymphocytes). Healthy bone marrow is like a healthy garden, where all the seeds grow into plants properly and produce the necessary fruit. Bone marrow riddles with cancer would be equivalent to a garden full of weeds (cancerous stem cells). These weeds would eventually take over the garden if not dealt with.
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| The equivalent of health bone marrow |
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| The equivalent of cancerous bone marrow |
Wow it's so awesome that you got to learn more background info before you jumped into your topic Justin! How many patients will you be looking at for this study!? Also I loved your garden analogy and I'm looking forward to your results!
ReplyDeleteHi Lauren, I'm glad you liked the analogy. For this study, I'm currently looking at around 600 patients, from 2008 to present. However, as you will see in my week 2 post, I've had some issues with data collection so that number might go down.
DeleteHi Justin,
ReplyDeleteI was wondering how do stem cells develop into cancerous? The analogy made it really easy to understand what is going on. Great work.
Hi Michael, like in most cancers, stem cells become cancerous when they undergo some genetic mutation, meaning there is abnormalities in the cell's DNA. This causes these cells to grow abnormally, rapidly and uncontrollably. Normally, the human immune system recognizes when there is something wrong with a cell and the cell will undergo apoptosis(cell suicide). However, because of these genetic mutations, apoptosis does not happen all the time with cancerous cells and they take over all the healthy cells. As for the specific causes of these genetic mutations, it's extremely hard to pinpoint. It's often a combination of both genetic and environmental factors (e.g. UV radiation). I'll leave you with a couple of examples of some common mutations found in cells of people with leukemia. The first is the translocation of chromosomes 9 and 22, which means parts of the chromosome switch places. A second example is the deletion of chromosome 7. Hope that helped!
DeleteHey Justin! Its cool that you found out more about your topic and have figured out how exactly you will analyze your data. With the research you did this week, what did you find out about stem cells that you think will be most crucial to carrying out your study?
ReplyDeleteHey Jack! This might be a weird answer to your question but I basically realized how much more I need to learn about my topic. I got to learn about post-transplant drug regiments, chemo drugs, some other important concepts (e.g. clonal evolution). In order to make a proper evaluation of the data, I'll probably need even more background.
DeleteHey Justin. I'm a fan of the analogy. Where did you get those pictures? What is the data you're going to be collecting? What do you hope to find?
ReplyDeleteHi Evan. Sorry to disappoint you but the pictures were just meant for the analogy so I just got them off Google. The data I will be collecting is patient height, pre-transplant weight, weight 100 days after the transplant and weight one year after the transplant. I want to find whether or not weight loss can predict certain post-transplant outcomes. Hope that helped!
DeleteHi Justin,
ReplyDeleteWhat an exciting first week! It's so great that you decided to look more into your topic before collecting data. I was wondering if you were looking at patients from a specific age group? Also, did looking at and further researching stem cells change the direction and perception of your project? I look forward to next week's post.
Hi Michelle! I'm actually not looking at a specific age group. So far from what I've seen the majority of patients fall between 50-70 years old. Of course the reason for this is the longer you are alive, the more likely you are to acquire genetic mutation, which might develop into cancer. However, I will say I have seen patients as young as early 20's in the data I collected. Further research this week basically showed me that I need more knowledge of my topic. As a result, I might see more time researching and seeing patients rather than just collecting data.
DeleteHey Justin!
ReplyDeleteNice job in collecting so much knowledge within a week of research, I really like your approach of gaining background knowledge for the treatments of cancer and more about stem cell. I also think interacting with patients help you gain more knowledge and better understanding on the your topic. I find it very interesting how stem cell can develop into cancerous cells.
How are the stem cells developed into the cancerous cells?
Can't wait for your next post!
Hi Sruthi! Thanks for the positive feedback. I think I gave a relatively extensive answer to your question because Michael asked the same question. Please check my response to him and I hope it helps!
DeleteHey Justin good work. I do want to know what is your hypothesis for this experiment. Also what is your ingroup? Do the factors of the group affect your results? Keep up the good work and I hope to hear more soon.
ReplyDeleteHi Akash! I guess my hypothesis as of right now would be, patients who lose less than 5% body weight by one year after their transplant would have better outcomes. Keep in mind though, my hypothesis right now is completely just based of intuition and I won't have a real idea until I've collected all of my data. The group of study for my project is every person who has received a stem cell transplant at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix from 2008 to present. Obviously, age, gender, prior health conditions, etc. of the patients will effect the outcome. However, if the group of study matches the typical distribution of stem cell transplant patients, I can still find statistically significant results. For example, the group of people getting stem cell transplant tends to fall in older age groups. Therefore, if I have a larger proportion of old people in my study, I can still make predictions about the bigger population. Essentially, in order to make any claims, the population of my study must match the population as a whole. Hope that helped!
DeleteHi Justin,
ReplyDeleteI like the analogy between bone marrow and a garden. Also, getting background information should really help your project go along. However, could you explain to me how stem cells can become cancerous cells? I'm looking forward to seeing next week's accomplishments!
Hi Richard, I'm glad you enjoyed the analogy. Personally, I find the analogies Dr.Sproat has given me have really given me a better understanding of my topic. I think Michael had the same question. Would you mind checking my response to him for the answer to your question? Thanks!
DeleteHey Justin. Interesting analogy. Could you tell other ways a garden could be like the human body.
ReplyDeleteHi Aditya, I'mg glad you liked the analogy. The analogy really only works for stem cells since it was made to explain specifically stem cells in an easier manner. However, if I was to compare a garden to the human body, I would probably talk about cell differentiation. Basically the analogy works, because you have one stem cell producing a variety of different blood cells. Hope that helped!
DeleteHey Justin,
ReplyDeleteNice analogy between bone marrow and a garden. Also, nice work collecting the background information. But, does BMI also measure if people were to lose fat, but gain muscle?
Hi Andrew, I think that's a good question. However, I don't really think it happens very often given our area of study. Obviously, two people could have the same BMI but have different amounts of muscle/fat because BMI is essentially a height-weight proportion. However, the patients in our study are still in a very fragile state after the transplant and be really careful because their immune systems are especially weak. Therefore, it doesn't happen often that they are building muscle and losing fat. Hope that helped!
DeleteHi Justin
ReplyDeleteSounds like you've had a busy first week, and that you are getting the lay of the land just fine. Your analogies are apt, and definitely explain complicated biological processes in very palpable terms.
I'm just curious how you will be presenting the results of your research at the end. A video? Slideshow? Poster? I don't expect you to have a perfect answer to that just yet, but was just curious.
My best to Dr. Sproat please!
Thanks Mr.Covalcuic! The Senior Research Project requires me to give a presentation (usually a slideshow) but aside from that, I will be writing my research up into a paper.
DeleteWhat kind of analysis tools will you be using? Sounds very interesting. Looking forward to hearing more about the analysis.
ReplyDeleteHello Dr. Sahu, I'm glad you are interested in the topic. As of right now, I don't know much about how I will be analyzing the data. I know I'm conducting a multi-variable analysis comparing weight to a variety of other factors. The number of patients in the study, reliability of the data, and other factors, will probably determine the specific statistics test I use. I will be working with a statistician though. Sorry I couldn't answer your question more thoroughly. I'll make sure to get back to you once I find out more.
DeleteHi Justin! Glad to hear that the first week went well! It was very smart of you to learn more about your topic so that when you collect any data you're more well-informed.
ReplyDeleteWill you be seeing anymore patients in the future?
Can't wait for next week.
Hi Spencer! Seeing patients was such a great learning experience. Before seeing a patient, Dr.Sproat basically gives me a rundown of the patients medical history which is where I get to learn a lot of cool new things (new drugs, new conditions, etc). I can't say for certain but I think I'll be able to see more patients once I get a little further into my data collection.
DeleteHey Justin! Your first week sounded super fun and I'm glad to see that you're enjoying it. I was also surprised to see how informed you are on this topic already and also I liked the analogy you had between bone marrow and a garden. Thanks!
ReplyDelete