Throughout the summer months, Sunnybrook Research Institute (SRI) plays host to high school, undergraduate and medical school students, providing them with unique hospital-based research experiences and exposure to an array of scientific specialties.
Students in the Focused Ultrasound High School Summer Research Program, Summer Student Research Program and the Sunnybrook Program to Access Research Knowledge (SPARK) for Black and Indigenous Medical Students work alongside renowned SRI scientists on research projects that span the expertise found across Sunnybrook.
This summer, SRI welcomed more than 200 learners into these programs. Meet three of this year’s summer students.
Aidan Wang, Summer Student in Dr. Meaghan O’Reilly’s Lab
Focused Ultrasound High School Summer Research Program
Not yet out of high school, Aidan Wang is already carving out his path in neuroscience. He is one of 25 students who made it into Sunnybrook’s highly competitive Focused Ultrasound High School Summer Research Program.
Honing his interest in machine learning and computational research, Aidan is working with Dr. Meaghan O’Reilly, a scientist in Physical Sciences at SRI, to develop models that will help apply focused ultrasound techniques to deliver therapies to the spinal cord. Much in the same way that focused ultrasound is used to open the blood-brain barrier to deliver treatments to the brain, Aidan says, Dr. O’Reilly’s lab is exploring how it can also be used to breach the blood-spinal cord barrier.
“The shape of the bones in your spine are a lot more complicated than the skull, so what I’m working on is using machine learning to create a better way to turn CT scans of the spine into a 3D model. We can create individual images of every single piece of vertebrae, and then we can run simulations on it.”
Although he hasn’t yet decided what he wants to do after high school, his experience at Sunnybrook this summer has opened his eyes to what a career in neurosciences could look like for him.
“I always wanted to work in research, but before this summer that was just a concept in my mind,” Aidan says.
“This program has really put me in the shoes of someone working in research, whether it’s diving into the literature and always learning about new developments in your field, or even waiting two days for the code for your model to run. In that case, it’s a lot of waiting, but it’s still fun.”
Alessia Apa, Summer Student in Dr. Isabelle Aubert’s Lab
Undergraduate Summer Research Program
Inspired by her own family history with Alzheimer’s disease, Alessia first reached out to Dr. Isabelle Aubert, a senior scientist in Biological Sciences whose work focuses on neurodegenerative disorders, for a co-op placement last fall. Alessia made such an impression on the team, she was invited back to the lab for a position in the SRI’s Summer Research Program.
This summer, she’s working on a project that uses focused ultrasound to deliver gene therapies to the brain, which would otherwise be inaccessible due to their large size and the presence of the blood brain barrier.
“I’m using two different strategies to confirm that our gene therapy has successfully entered the brain,” Alessia says.
“We’re able to visualize where we target the focused ultrasound and can confirm where in the brain the therapy is produced as well as measure how much therapy is being produced.”
Working in Dr. Aubert’s lab, Alessia is acutely aware of the toll neurodegenerative diseases can take on the brain. Only a few years ago, Alessia’s grandfather received care for his Alzheimer’s disease at Sunnybrook and now, she says, she’s coming back to where it all started.
“I’ve been exposed to Alzheimer’s disease from a pretty young age,” Alessia explains. “Getting to come into the lab, seeing the advances that Dr. Aubert and our entire group are making towards developing potential therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease, is really fulfilling.”
“I feel like I get to contribute to the overall improvement of the disease, bringing hope to families like mine.”
Jada Roach, Summer Student with Dr. Donald Redelmeier
Sunnybrook Program to Access Research Knowledge (SPARK) for Black and Indigenous Medical Students
Physician apologies can be a fraught subject, whether apologizing for being late to an appointment or even for a medical error. But for Jada Roach, saying, ‘I’m sorry,’ could lead to better relationships between clinicians and patients.
Jada is a medical school student with SPARK, a Sunnybrook-led program that provides Black and Indigenous medical students with mentorship and opportunities to engage in research.
This year, Jada is one of seven medical school students exploring different career paths in research and academic medicine through the program. Under the mentorship of Dr. Donald Redelmeier, senior scientist in Evaluative Clinical Sciences, she has been researching clinician apologies with the goal of creating a resource that will help clinicians apologize better and enhance person-centred care.
Even though she hasn’t yet narrowed down which medical speciality she wants to pursue, she says SPARK has given her an enormous breadth of exposure to different fields.
“SPARK offers us three different mentors over the summer and then through the rest of the year. It’s such an amazing opportunity to get to interact with different specialties,” Jada says.
“I’m such a champion of equity work and giving people different opportunities that they might not have had. Being in SPARK, there’s a range of projects that I never would have had the opportunity to choose.”
