Thursday Blog: Common Undergraduate Research Advising Questions

With Emory’s School of Medicine right at our fingertips, there are ample research opportunities to get involved with on campus. Anusha Panjwani is a senior at Emory College of Arts and Sciences majoring in Human Health with an epidemiology focus, minoring in South Asian Studies on the pre-medical track. She is in Dr. Gavegnano’s Drug Discovery Program in the Department of Pathology in Emory School of Medicine, working with the Morningside Center for Innovative and Affordable Medicine. She works on the clinical protocol writing team working on repurposing drugs for metastatic cancers.

1. What made you interested in your research?

I took Dr. Gavegnano’s drug discovery class in the spring of my sophomore year and I really loved learning about the different parts of wet lab, business, and clinical side and how it relates to people's lives. Dr. Gavegnano’s really cool because she repurposed Baricitnib for the use of COVID-19 and was starting an undergraduate Drug Discovery Program that I was really interested in. That summer I joined the clinical protocol writing team where we would submit letters of intent for the FDI, working with the Morningside Center for Innovative and Affordable Medicine.

2. Could you describe the relevance of your research?

My team and I recently conducted a review of 50+ repurposed drugs in combination with an existing cancer therapeutic to improve outcomes of people with metastatic cancers. These are cancers that don’t respond well to current cancer treatments, or rather stop the tumor from progressing but don’t cure the cancer. The repurposed drugs that we looked at are generally affordable and may improve someone’s life significantly. This research is aimed at both clinicians, who don’t know about the data of these repurposed drugs + cancer therapeutics, and patients who are always actively looking for treatment options.

3. What would you say the importance of STEM research is?

Medicine is a constantly evolving field in terms of drugs, procedures, therapies, etc and is an effective tool in advancing health outcomes. For my research specifically, I think it is cool how we are consolidating data that is already out there and delivering it to people who want to learn about it the most and would not necessarily seek it out. Additionally, we are developing a patient blog which enhances scientific communication, which is really important to be able to transmit information to individuals who need it the most.

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