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Lessons from the Lab: Learning Outside the Classroom
The COVID–19 vaccine rollout in late 2020 was accompanied by quite a bit of misinformation about its potential risks. One area of concern was whether the vaccine was linked to a higher risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration suggested. This rare neurological disorder can cause paralysis and death.
At the time, Mustafa Jaffry, MD’23, and Kranthi Mandava, MD’23, were NJMS students with a keen interest in research, going back to their high school days. (Read about Jaffry and Mandava’s backstory on page 15.) In light of the FDA warning, they decided to counter the public’s fear with facts.
Assembling a 10-member team, they collaborated with experts from Texas Tech to develop an artificial intelligence tool that they used to analyze the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System database. Evaluating more than 1,000 reports, the team concluded that there’s no significant increased risk of GBS in COVID-vaccinated individuals.
Because their team leader, Nizar Souayah, MD, NJMS professor of neurology, studies the correlation between Guillain-Barré syndrome and vaccines, “it was the perfect opportunity” for the COVID–19 study, says Jaffry. He notes that the study quickly went viral: their findings were widely reported in more than 77 major news outlets, including U.S. News & World Report and MSN.com.
Says Souayah: “It’s unusual for medical students to co-author a high-caliber paper like the GBS analysis. It took a lot of commitment on their part.”
Actually, it’s not such an unusual occurrence at NJMS, where many students have the opportunity to become involved with exciting research, educational initiatives, and other special projects, in collaboration with faculty members. Here is a look at some of these projects.
Making the Medical School Journey Together
Mustafa Jaffry, MD’23, and Kranthi Mandava, MD’23, are best friends, which is not surprising, given their shared interest in medicine, science, and research. But what is unusual is the duration of their friendship, spanning almost a lifetime. “We met in the sixth grade, when we sat at the same table in the cafeteria,” says Jaffry.
“At first, we didn’t hang out together that much,” says Mandava, picking up the thread. “We became good friends in middle school, and even better friends in high school. We went to Rutgers and did premed together, hung out pretty much every day. Then we went to NJMS. And now we’re both doing our residencies at NJMS.”
When asked whether this togetherness was intentional, they both pause. “It’s pure coincidence!” Mandava says. And then they laugh.
“Even with the match algorithm, which is completely unpredictable, what are the odds that we would end up at the same institution for our residencies?” asks Jaffry. “It defies explanation.”
He adds: “We’re actually in the same residency program now, because for ophthalmology, internal medicine is the first year of residency. So we’re not only both at NJMS, but we’re co-residents.”
While the two are best buds, no one will ever compare them to Beavis and Butthead. For one, they occupy the stratosphere of smartness, always outstanding students. Jaffry plans a career in ophthalmology, while Mandava is focusing on internal medicine, with plans to do a GI fellowship.
Jaffry was influenced by his father, an infectious disease specialist. “My dad did an internal medicine residency at NJMS and encouraged me to follow in his footsteps,” says Jaffry. “I have a photo of myself—at age 1—with my father at his residency graduation. It was taken in the NJMS courtyard. Twenty years later, at my NJMS graduation, we took our photo in the exact same spot.” (See photos above.)
As undergraduates, the two worked in a lab at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. This experience set the stage for their COVID–19 research project, guided by Nizar Souayah, MD, NJMS professor of neurology. “He had just started doing research on the COVID vaccine,” says Mandava. “We became involved, helping with the data analysis and interpretation.”
“When we published our paper on Guillain-Barré syndrome and COVID vaccine, it was widely covered in the national news and was the subject of hundreds of articles,” says Jaffry. “It was exciting, and totally unexpected.”
As part of the project, Mandava and Jaffry created the Neuromuscular and Electrodiagnostic Medicine (NEM) Research Institute. Comprised of former classmates, current and pre-med students, and undergrads, the institute has presented numerous papers at numerous conferences.
“Sharing this journey to becoming physicians has benefited both of us,” says Jaffry. “It’s great to have someone to study with and bounce ideas off of, who understands your struggles and responsibilities.”
NIH R25 Program
The National Institutes of Health’s Research Education Program (R25) supports research education activities in certain mission areas of the NIH. Last summer, Rutgers Health celebrated two years of success with its R25 training program: “Multidisciplinary Opportunities in Research Education for Students in Health Professions.”
Through this innovative summer activity, students explore careers in research, gain valuable work experience, and develop relationships with faculty mentors who can provide career guidance. An area of focus is encouraging students from underrepresented groups to pursue further studies or careers in research. NJMS is one of four Rutgers Health schools participating in the program; the other participants are Rutgers School of Dental Medicine, the School of Health Professions, and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
R25 scholars work with some 30 faculty members, conducting 10 weeks of research in the fields of cardiology, pulmonology, and hematology. The students also engage in career development activities, participate in literature review, attend workshops, and visit pharmaceutical companies, visits that sometimes lead to internships.
NJMS student Sebastian Acevedo (pictured, top right) is enthusiastic about his R25 experience. “It’s an intensive program,” says Acevedo, whose family immigrated to the U.S. from Colombia when he was 4 years old.
Paired with a mentor, Rotem Naftalovich, MD, MBA, assistant professor of anesthesiology, Acevedo helped write a grant proposal for a project studying blood viscosity. While they did not receive that grant, the skills Acevedo acquired gave him the tools to successfully apply for a $5,000 Helping Hands grant from the American Psychiatry Foundation a year later. With this funding, he ran a 10-week workshop for Newark youth, designed to decrease the stigma of mental health.
“The level of support I have received at NJMS and through the R25 program is unparalleled,” says Acevedo, who is considering a career as an addiction psychiatrist.
Another participant, NJMS student Naana Kena (top left), says the R25 program taught her a different way to approach science—in her case, advancing her studies in congenital heart defects. “My experience being an R25 scholar was nothing short of amazing!” she says. “Before being in the program, I always envisioned myself as a purely clinical physician. But it opened my eyes to a whole new realm of possibilities for physicians.”
The R25 program is overseen by Valerie A. Fitzhugh MD’04, associate professor and chair of pathology, immunology and laboratory medicine; Diego Fraidenraich, MSC, PhD, associate professor of cell biology and molecular medicine; and Pranela Rameshwar, PhD’93, professor of medicine.
Putting Climate Change on the curriculum map
Working as a clinical research coordinator at a New York City hospital a few years ago, Victoria Ribiero (pictured below) saw firsthand the inequitable impact of climate change on patients. “Air pollution contributed to the disproportionately high asthma rates we saw in pediatric patients from the South Bronx,” she says. “When I enrolled at NJMS, I started looking at climate change from both a medical and health-justice point of view.”
To address this issue, Ribeiro, now an NJMS student, created a three-hour seminar on climate change, the school’s first on the subject, that’s part of the required Healing, Humanism, and Health Equity curriculum.
The seminar was Ribeiro’s project for NJMS’s Distinction in Medical Education program, one of seven extracurricular activities for students interested in exploring advanced studies in various areas, including bioethics and urban health. Her mentors for the project are Michelle DallaPiazza, MD, associate
professor of medicine; and Novneet Sahu, MD, assistant professor of emergency and family medicine and interim chair of family medicine.
“Climate change’s effect on health has been mentioned in lectures, but this is the first time we have taken an in-depth look at the subject and formally added it to our curriculum,” says DallaPiazza. “We had always intended to include it, so Victoria’s timing was perfect.”
Riberio began her project by reviewing lectures and curricula from NJMS and other medical schools, along with information from medical societies and interest groups. The seminar she created focuses on the impact of climate change on socioeconomic systems, especially in Newark, where Ribeiro is from. Topics covered include the effect of climate change on medications, the exacerbation of chronic medical conditions, housing insecurity, mass migrations, and the burden on health systems.
“I made sure to look at every course that was published and to make note of major themes, what worked well and what did not,” says Riberio. Through lectures and interactive sessions, the seminar she created focuses on the impact of climate change on socioeconomic systems, especially in Newark, where Ribeiro is from, and elsewhere in New Jersey. It identifies solutions to patients’ climatechange-related medical needs, discusses the healthcare system’s contribution to climate change and outlines climate change mitigation strategies.
DallaPiazza, Ribeiro, and Sahu are studying the seminar’s effectiveness and plan to submit it for publication in an educational journal. Ribeiro hopes that the seminar helps students “see things from a different perspective and that they consider climate change when they are making management plans in clinical settings. Although one student can’t make a big change on a systemic level, education is the first step in spreading awareness and getting people to make a change.”
She hopes her seminar starts them down the path.
