Urology PSTP Scholars

Research Interests:

My primary interest during my research year is to learn the skills to be able to identify unmet medical needs, invent, design and commercialize medical devices. As an Innovation Fellow at Center for Device Development at Northwestern University, we are using curriculum developed by Dr. Dan McCarthy (another PSTP scholar) and Dr. David Mahvi. This year, with a group of engineers and clinicians from different specialties, we are working toward a new device in dermatology. In urologic research, I am working on understanding the risk factors for infectious complications of patients who present with symptomatic ureteral stones and undergo primary stone treatments.

Research Interests:

As an undergraduate, I worked with Dr. Richard Tapping studying the sensing of microbial cell wall components by Toll-like receptors. This resulted in a senior thesis that won the best undergraduate thesis in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. My interests shifted toward genitourinary disease during medical school, and I matched at the Urology residency program at Northwestern. I am currently interested in examining the importance of prostatic fibrosis for the development of lower urinary tract symptoms seen in both benign prostatic hyperplasia and chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome with Dr. Praveen Thumbikat. We are currently examining this in a mouse model. Additionally, I am interested in assessing the ability of ultrasound elastography to assist in the diagnosis and management of urinary tract obstruction and erectile dysfunction.

Research Interests:

In medical school, I worked with Dr. David Bloom and Dr. John Park on clinical outcomes of high-risk myelomeningocele patients, specifically focusing on their bladder pressures and potential interventions to delay the need for major reconstructive surgery to protect kidney function. I am now in my urology residency and have joined the laboratory of Dr. Edward M. Gong to focus on bladder dysfunction from obstruction, the cause of kidney failure in many pediatric patients. To this end, I am using a mouse model of obstruction to determine the mechanisms behind pathologic bladder degeneration and the role of androgens in this process, with the goal of developing therapeutic agents to prevent loss of bladder function and promote regeneration of healthy bladder tissue in children affected by posterior urethral valves or neurogenic bladder.

Research Interests:

Bladder cancer, Prostate cancer, BPH, Stone disease

Research Interests:

Research Interests:

After graduating from medical school in 2002 I started my residency in Urology at the University Hospital of Ulm in Ulm, Germany, and transferred to Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School for a post-doctoral fellowship focused on biomarkers of aggressive prostate cancer. Combining tissue-based and patient cohort-based approaches, I was working on finding biomarkers at the DNA and protein level to identify those patients that were at risk of rapid progression. After 4 years of fellowship I joined the Department of Pathology at the Brigham and Women's Hospital for my residency in Anatomic Pathology from which I graduated in 2009. Wanting to return to my original field, Urology, I started my Urology residency at Northwestern University in 2009. My research interests remain in biomarkers of prostate cancer progression, technological and research advancement over the past decade and further insights in the heterogeneity of prostate cancer making research in this field ever more challenging.

Research Interests:

Urologic oncology, endourology, medical education

Research Interests:

Health Infrastructure and Development and Surgical Education in Low Resourced Settings related to Urologic Disease Burdens