Fortis Gaba
Prostate Cancer and Me:
a Summer Internship
This past summer I spent 8 weeks working as a research intern at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, USA. This was an opportunity for me to gain insight into liquid biopsy and circulating tumour cells (CTC’s) as my interest lies in surgical oncology.
I was introduced to my supervisor Dr. Edwin Posadas, from one of my previous projects. My job involved helping out in research and clinics. Every Thursday our Uro-Oncology team held journal club where we each presented a paper. The paper I presented was titled “Ipilimumab plus nivolumab and DNA-repair defects in AR-V7- expressing metastatic prostate cancer”. Through this experience I learnt to become more confident in presenting and more judicial with reading papers. Annotating CTC’s based on cell morphology, nucleus impression, marker staining (CK, CD45, DAPI) was one of the many skills I learnt in the lab.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my summer, made life-long friends and learned a lot. I even learnt some urology jokes and I thought I would share one with you - a patient goes to the urologist for a follow up. He enters the examination room and waits patiently. Finally, the doctor comes in and the patient asks. “What’s my prognosis doctor?” The doctor responds, “URine trouble”.
​
I strongly recommend anyone wanting to gain more research to travel abroad. The funding is immense, with plentiful opportunities to pursue interests and work with experts.
More from the Autumn '18 Issue