Caroline Medin and Jessica Keilson receive prestigious support for their research sabbaticals
JULY 2021
Emory general surgery residents Caroline Medin, MD, and Jessica Keilson, MD, have received awards that will assist in funding their respective sabbaticals involving cancer research. Both residents are being co-mentored by Shishir K. Maithel, MD, scientific director of Emory's Liver and Pancreas Center and director of the Katz Foundation Research Program in Surgical Oncology, and Gregory Lesinski, PhD, co-director of the Translational GI Malignancy Program.
Dr. Medin has been accepted into the Georgia Clinical & Translational Science Alliance (Georgia CTSA) TL1 Program, which provides one year of NIH TL1-funded tuition support for pursuing a Master of Science in Clinical Research degree at Emory Laney Graduate School as well as a stipend for a mentored research proposal. Her research project will focus on characterizing the colorectal cancer tumor immune microenvironment and the immunologic mechanisms that mediate the persistence and proliferation of colorectal liver metastasis in order to identify novel therapeutic targets.
CTSA TL1 grants support research training experiences for trainees who are pursuing careers in multi-disciplinary clinical and translational science. Dr. Medin is the fourth resident associated with Dr. Maithel's lab to receive this prestigious award, with Dr. Keilson receiving it in 2020, Michael Turgeon, MD, in 2019, and Adriana Gamboa, MD, in 2018.
Dr. Keilson is the 2021 recipient of the Chester P. Rochfort Scholarship of Winship Cancer Institute. This award will assist in funding the second year of her basic and translational investigations of the role of unique immunotherapeutic targets for the treatment of cholangiocarcinoma, a rare malignancy of the biliary tree.
Specifically, Dr. Keilson is focused on defining galectin-9's role in the cholangiocarcinoma tumor microenvironment and disease progression in order to leverage this target as a potential therapy for this aggressive cancer. Galectin-9 is a glycoprotein identified in a variety of cancer cell types that plays a critical role in tumorigenesis and immune system evasion.