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R E S E A R C H › S E L E C T E D P R O G R A M S
 MEDICAL SCIENTIST TRAINING PROGRAM › Siri Sonty entered the Feinberg School through the Honors Program in Medical Education. Biomedical research piqued her interest. “I was interested in cognition and how it breaks down in dementia,” she says. › She sought out M.-Marsel Mesulam, MD, Evelyn and Ruth Dunbar Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and director of the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center, and Darren R. Gitelman, MD, associate professor of neurology, for a Feinberg School–sponsored summer fellowship. “They were using functional magnetic resonance imaging [fMRI] of the brain to study how aging preferentially affects various cognitive domains, such as spatial attention, working memory, and language.” › Sonty collected data on patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA), which affects language function but leaves other cognitive domains relatively unscathed. Subsequently Sonty won a year-long Howard Hughes Medical Institute fellowship. “I continued learning the fMRI technique, data analysis, and experimental design as well as observing the patients’ neuropsychological examinations.” › She decided to pursue a PhD degree and was accepted to the school’s Medical Scientist Training Program, enabling her to earn both MD and PhD degrees in seven to eight years. Her first paper on PPA and the language network was published in January 2003, and those findings will contribute to her PhD thesis project. “Having both degrees will help me contribute to the understanding of these diseases and improve their treatments,” she says.
INTEGRATED GRADUATE PROGRAM IN THE LIFE SCIENCES › “The enthusiasm of the researchers I met drew me to Northwestern,” says third-year Integrated Graduate Program in the Life Sciences student Derek Applewhite. As a first-year student, he rotated through three laboratories. › He chose the lab led by Gary Borisy, PhD, Leslie B. Arey Professor of Cell, Molecular, and Anatomical Sciences, where he studies actin-based organelles assembled on the cell’s cytoskeleton that facilitate movement. Cell motility drives vital biological processes, including embryonic development. “In cancer,” adds Applewhite, “cells use forms of lamellipodia and filopodia to facilitate metastasis.” › He was co-author of a published paper that showed the key role of “capping protein” in the assembly or nonassembly of lamellipodia and filopodia. “The technology we’re using is just amazing,” he says, noting a small-interfering RNA vector developed in the lab that selectively blocks the capping protein and a new total internal reflection microscope (TIRF) system. › “The TIRF laser’s evanescent wave deteriorates quickly in space,” explains Applewhite. “Consquently, the excitation is limited to 200 nanometers, so we see clearly the plane of the cytoskeleton where these actin structures form. › Applewhite considers Dr. Borisy a “forward thinker” who likes to be on the cutting edge of technology. “His students and postdocs have a wide range of expertise and perspectives,” he says.
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FIG. 1
Dr. Darren Gitelman and Siri Sonty use functional magnetic resonance imaging to reveal brain activation. |
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FIG. 2
Deciding whether two letter strings are identical activates the green areas, and deciding whether
two words are synonymous activates the yellow areas. |
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FIG. 3
Derek Applewhite (left) and Dr. Gary Borisy examine the assembly of actin-based organelles vital to cell motility. |
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