John Kim, SEAS ’26, North Potomac, MD
The 2024 Career Services Summer Funding Grant played a crucial role in helping me become a more experienced and accomplished researcher with Dr. Noor Momin, PhD. This was my first summer working with Dr. Noor Momin, so I was very excited to explore the field of cardio immunotherapy. As a bioengineer, I wanted to learn more about our immune system and how to module our immune system for therapeutic means in context of cardiovascular disease. Meeting my expectations, I have gained a diverse array of wet- and dry-lab skills that inspired me to invest more in-depth in the field of immunotherapy.
This summer, I researched engineering a therapeutic for preventing arrhythmia after myocardial infarction (MI). Post-MI, patients oftentimes experience cardiac arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat. If continued, it could lead to heart failure. Current treatments such as defibrillation are lifesaving but are by no means a preventive treatment. In my project, I focused on a protein called RELMy, a protein that exacerbates arrhythmia post-MI. We hypothesized that RELMy causes cardiac arrythmia by permanently damaging cardiomyocytes. Thus, my research focused on engineering RELMy in e. coli and testing RELMy’s adverse effects on cardiomyocytes.
This summer, I have learned numerous invaluable lessons. Interacting with researchers and peers in the Momin Lab expanded my view on the possible career options in research. This exposure allowed me to think about my career choices to continue to pursue my curiosity and interest in medicine. I think having the opportunity to have a firsthand experience in a laboratory setting is crucial, and I would like to thank the Career Services for making this opportunity feasible.
This is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2024 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they spent their summer. You can read the entire series here
