Melissa is a graduate student in the Program in Cancer Biology. She is part of the Kim Rathmell lab where she investigates the relationship between infiltrating immune cells and RCC tumor cells and the metabolic programs they employ to drive tumor progression and therapeutic resistance.
Learn a bit about her research from Melissa herself!
"Pseudo-hypoxic contributions to the tumor microenvironment in kidney cancer"
When you were 5, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Astronaut!
What was it about science that drew you to it?
I've always been fascinated with the unknown and I love letting my experimental results drive the questions I ask next.
In a nutshell, what do you study?
Tumor microenvironment in kidney cancer.
Why is your research important? What is its larger impact, and/or how do you foresee it impacting public health?
My goal is to advance our current understanding of kidney cancer biology by demonstrating mechanisms that shape the tumor microenvironment and highlighting new strategies to improve immunotherapy.
What has been your biggest challenge as a scientist?
Learning to strive for excellence and be an imperfect scientist at the same time has been my greatest challenge. Maintaining this balance is something I choose to practice, not overcome, every day.
What's next for you?
I have a lot of exciting experiments planned! I'm also looking forward to learning new techniques and computational skills.
What are you looking forward to doing most, once the pandemic is under control, and life starts to return to a state of normalcy?
Traveling!
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