Pathology Dynamics

March Lab Member of the Month: Jamie Hernandez Kluesner

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We are proud to announce our March Lab Member of the Month: Jamie Hernandez Kluesner! Jamie is an integral part of the Alzheimer’s team. This semester, she and her team are performing statistical analysis on papers that they have curated in order to see which mutations in mice are most similar to humans to “streamline the treatment process for patients.” Her nominators had these praises for her: “she’s always in the lab so late” and “she works really hard, especially with the new project she has.” Outside of her lab involvement, Jamie is also involved in Student Center Operations. She is also Pre-Med and has been preparing for grad school. We are so glad to have Jamie in the lab, and thank her for all of the hard work she’s done!

Leila Bond Publishes Third First-Author ALS Article

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In January 2020, an article titled “Associations of Patient Mood, Modulators of Quality of Life, and Pharmaceuticals with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Survival Duration” was published in the Behavioral Sciences journal. Leila Bond, one of our hardworking undergrads, is the first author of this paper, which marks her third first-author publication. This is an impressive accomplishment for an undergrad, and all of us in the lab are extremely proud of her. This paper is about the association between the modulators of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) patients’ quality of life and their survival duration. It has received recognition from the amount of “hits” that it has received since publication, meaning that it has been read many times in this short period. We are proud of Leila’s previous achievements and are excited to see the amazing things that she will surely be a part of in her future.

PURA Awarded to Brandon White

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The President’s Undergraduate Research Award (PURA) is an award that funds student salaries for conducting undergraduate research with Georgia Tech faculty and assists in travel expenses related to professional conferences at which students present their research. Our own Brandon White received the PURA salary fellowship for Spring of 2020. Brandon joined the lab in Spring of 2019 as a G93A Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) curator and apprenticed with the Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) team. In Summer 2019, he became a full CML team member while continuing G93A curation and helping with the CML Meta-Analysis project. In Fall of 2019, he worked on QC for the ALS and CML teams before beginning to lay the groundwork for his new Acute Leukemia (AL) project and submitting his PURA application.

Dr. Mitchell Won 2019 American Neurological Association Award

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The American Neurological Association (ANA) is an organization which is comprised of the top academic neurologists and neuroscientists from across the country. At the ANA’s Annual Meeting, these academics share and discuss the latest research and breakthroughs related to diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and multiple sclerosis, etc. The Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Award is one of the awards that the ANA gives out at the Annual Meeting. The 2019 Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Award went to our own Cassie S. Mitchell, Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology. We are very proud of her, and are excited to see her hard work being nationally recognized.

My Farewell Letter – Matthew Maker

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I have recently left the Pathology Dynamics lab at Georgia Tech to pursue a MS degree in Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University. While I begin this new journey in one of the most famous cities on the planet, I continue to look back in appreciation of the people who helped get me here. My developed talents and skills that I have obtained over the last year are thanks to the amazing mentor-ship of this lab’s PI, Dr. Cassie Mitchell. She believes in pushing those in her lab to meet the potential she sees in them. My gratitude does not stop here, as it was also the amazing members of this lab that helped provide such amazing support to each other whenever there was a problem we needed help with. To everyone, I say thank you. With me gone, a new voice must now take over the website and the wonderful news that this lab produces, though I am sure whoever does will outdo my clumsy sentences and posts. Good luck to everyone in the Pathology Dynamics lab, I look forward to seeing what amazing research you all continue to produce.

REU Member: Darius Leftwich

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A 21 year-old senior at the University of Maryland-Baltimore, Darius has joined our lab through Georgia Tech’s SURE (Summer Undergraduate Research Experience) program. He has been tasked with developing and optimizing a database tool for Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) to aid in all future approaches to research on this illness. Back at the University of Maryland, Darius spends his free time hiking, analyzing movies and listening to R&B, particularly Anderson Paak. He has already aided the lab tremendously with his work as well as kept us laughing with his humor.

REU Member: James Kim

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A 20 year-old Junior from the University of Missouri, James has joined our lab for the summer through Emory’s PERSE (Pediatric Engineering Research Summer Experience) program. He has been tasked with utilizing SEM-NET, a text mining tool developed by our lab, to find correlations with cardiovascular data, and use that information to better determine the direction of future research in this area. Back at Missouri, James plays tennis for their club team, volunteers as a tutor for high school students, jams on the ukulele and paints. He is an extremely talented young student with a bright future, and our lab is lucky to have him.

Jayant Prakash Gives an Oral Presentation at the Machine Learning in Science and Engineering Symposium

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During the 2019 Annual Data Science Forum, Jayant was given the honor of presenting his research as a speaker for the Machine Learning in Science and Engineering Symposium (MLSE). He talked about his use of machine learning to improve diagnostics of Alzheimer’s Disease and how the promising results could have a huge impact on medicine’s approach to this form of dementia. This lab is proud of Jayant’s success thus far and looks forward to all future accomplishments he will achieve.

Shout Out to Our PI, Dr. Cassie Mitchell, for Being Selected as a 2019 Diversity and Inclusion Fellow

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Dr. Cassie Mitchell is the head of the Pathology Dynamics lab as well as a wheelchair-bound quadriplegic. However, her disabilities have never stopped nor even slowed her down. On top of exploring future possibilities for the direction of predictive medicine, she has also dedicated her time to ensuring the disabled portion of the Georgia Tech community have the necessary resources available to them. This lab is beyond proud to see her selected as a 2019 Diversity and Inclusion (DI) Fellow at Georgia Tech and believe she is well deserving of the title. To read more about Dr. Mitchell and this appointment, please click on the link below:

https://www.bme.gatech.edu/bme/cassie-mitchell-selected-2019-diversity-and-inclusion-fellow

Premi Gives Back as a Newly Named Undergraduate Research Ambassador

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The Undergraduate Research Ambassadors (URA) are a dedicated group of students who help their peers find opportunities to gain experience. Premi Mohanavelu has chosen to join their ranks to help give back to those looking for the same chances that were once allotted to her. She is an integral member of our team and as a computer science major has helped the Pathology Dynamics lab build our CML database. We are proud Premi has chosen to become a URA and help those achieve the same things she has.