CT imaging

Med Students Dip Their Toes Into IRP Research

Dozens of Doctors-To-Be Spent a Year Working in IRP Labs

NIH MRSP participants (clock-wise from top-right): Maame Amoako, Megan Jiao, Brady Greene, and Abhinav Suri

American medical and dental schools do an excellent job of producing caring and knowledgeable medical professionals, but they don’t always provide opportunities for their students to get a taste of life in the lab. For a few dozen of those students each year, NIH’s Medical Research Scholars Program (MRSP) fills in that gap, welcoming a cadre of future physicians to NIH for a year of research in IRP labs. 

Over the past year, 52 medical students have been getting their feet wet in biomedical research under the guidance of experienced IRP scientists. Whether investigating new ways to detect diabetes or trying to improve ADHD treatment, the 2023-2024 class of MRSP participants received a world-class crash course in how to make new discoveries that will improve patients’ lives. Read on to get your own crash course on some of the exciting research they have been conducting over the past year.

Predicting Risks and Benefits for Lung Cancer Screening

IRP Researchers Refine Tools to Maximize the Benefit from Life-Saving Tests

patient getting a CT scan

Eleven years ago, IRP senior investigator Hormuzd Katki, Ph.D., had a bit of an eureka moment during a press event announcing the results of the National Lung Cancer Screening Trial, which demonstrated that annual screenings cut the risks of dying from lung cancer in heavy smokers by 20 percent.

“It struck me as I read the trial results that not only was this a very important trial, but that it was possible that different people will have different benefits from lung cancer screening,” Dr. Katki remembers. “Even within this group of very high-risk smokers who were part of the trial, you can identify some people who get much more benefit than other people, and that has implications for who should be offered this kind of screening.”

Simplifying HIV Treatment: A Surprising New Lead

Reblogged from the NIH Director's Blog.

CD4 cells in colon, SIV

The surprising results of an animal study are raising hopes for a far simpler treatment regimen for people infected with the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Currently, HIV-infected individuals can live a near normal life span if, every day, they take a complex combination of drugs called antiretroviral therapy (ART). The bad news is if they stop ART, the small amounts of HIV that still lurk in their bodies can bounce back and infect key immune cells, called CD4 T cells, resulting in life-threatening suppression of their immune systems.