Franklin & Marshall College

Medical Student at Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Bronx, New York, United States

MD Class of 2023
Labs Coordinator, Einstein Community Health Outreach (ECHO) Free Clinic
Co-President, NICU Cuddling Volunteering Program

Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Medical Student

Study Coordinator of NORSE, a multicenter, international study on New-Onset Refractory Status Epilepticus. Through this prospective, observational study, we hope to better understand the causes of NORSE, identify key determinants of outcome, and determine the best treatment strategy. The associated collection of biospecimens will allow for future research on biomarkers of this condition.

Responsibilities include:
- Enrolling new patients in the study
- Facilitating monthly conference calls between research centers
- Interviewing patients at follow-up visits for data collection
- Maintaining the Center’s bio-repository of tissue and blood samples

Working under Dr. Lawrence Hirsch, MD

Yale University School of Medicine

Postgraduate Researcher

- Studied innate mechanisms of immunosuppression, specifically the role of NLRC3 in the negative regulation of the cGAS-STING pathway
-  Identified and characterized protein-interactors of NLRC3 to better define its regulatory behavior
-  Techniques employed include: co-immunoprecipitation and Western blotting, confocal microscopy, real-time PCR, luciferase reporter assays
-  Presented at the AAI Immunology 2017 Conference
-  Funding provided by the Lesser Grant and Hackman Scholarship

Davis Immunology Lab

Student Researcher

- CENIR - Center for NeuroImaging Research
- Identification of dopaminergic social cognition pathways in Parkinson's patients using neuroimaging techniques, including MRI and fMRI
- Collaborated with neuropsychologists, neuroimaging engineers, and movement disorder specialists to complete my own independent research projected entitled "La théorie de l’esprit dans la maladie de Parkinson : une étude d’IRMf en l’état du repos" (The Theory of Mind in Parkinson's Disease: A Resting-State fMRI Study)
- All research (writing, presenting, daily communications) done in French

ICM - Brain & Spine Institute

- Worked under Dr. Kamil Detyniecki, principal investigator
- Investigated the risk factors, prevalence, and consequences of seizure clusters in a cohort of pediatric epilepsy patients as part of the Pediatric Seizure Diary Study
- Measured and compared the success of surgical treatment for Focal Cortical Dysplasia and Mesial Temporal Sclerosis
- Interviewed and recruited patients for various clinical trials
- Wrote Manual of Protocols for various clinical trials, currently under IRB review
- Completed HIPAA, patients' rights, and clinical research ethics training
- Funding provided by the Hershfield-Rosenthal Endowed Fund for Off-Campus Biomedical Research

Yale School of Medicine

Clinical Research Assistant

- Resident advisor in freshman dorm
- Provided academic and personal mentoring
- Helped run freshman orientation

Alma Rechnitzer