AADOCR NSRG Secretary Candidate 2026-2027
Harvard
Boston, MA
Graduation Date: 2031
Reasons for Running
I am a student in the newly established DMD-PhD program at Harvard. I am excited by opportunities to apply cutting-edge research to tackle the immense global challenge of caries; strive to collaborate with some of the brightest minds in medicine to advance oral health; and aspire to one day become a mentor to future dental physician scientists.
Since the Harvard DMD-PhD program is new and small – currently I am the only student in the program, and there are only two other DMD-DMSc students – I would love to get to know student researchers at other schools. I hope that the NSRG will be my gateway into the world of academic dentistry and organized dentistry.
At HSDM, I am trying to launch a research society, which will host journal clubs and joint events with other Boston schools. I hope that joining NSRG will allow me to take experiences from established research societies and better spearhead my local initiative.
I also hope to take my experience in translational research and industry, to help enrich the NSRG. I envision more NSRG events that engage students pursuing translational and dental research projects, as well as possible webinars that bring in speakers from dental industry.
Research Conducted / Student Activities
WALT LAB, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, Research Trainee (2023-Present)
- Initiated project on early dental caries diagnostics and risk assessment, harnessing Walt lab’s expertise in biomarker discovery and ultra-sensitive biomarker detection.
- Initiated collaboration with the Moffitt lab on using MERFISH, a spatially resolved single-cell transcriptome profiling technology, to explore dental pulp responses to caries.
BICON LLC, Research & Development Investigator (2021-2023)
- Extracted clinical insights from 20 years’ worth of clinical data in Bicon’s database.
- Developed a novel computational method to analyze peri-implant bone level changes over time.
- Initiated and led projects that explore the biology of dental implants, including a study that revealed a correlation between hypervitaminosis D and implant failure.
- Developed a novel self-setting bone graft hydrogel, currently under clinical testing.
- Started an initiative to explore the microbiological aspect of implant failure with modern genetics.
SHARP LAB, MIT KOCH INSTITUTE, Undergraduate Researcher (2020-2021)
- Conducted independent research under Nobel Laureate Professor Phillip Sharp: exploring the use of immune checkpoint blockade to treat pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
- Collaborative projects: investigated the relationship between enhancers and pancreatic cancer; investigated transcription dynamics (with Lander Lab, Broad Institute); optimized Single-Cell Global Run-On Sequencing (scGRO-seq) computational pipelines.