Research Day!

Today was an exciting day. It was "research day," a day filled with poster and oral presentations about research conducted by UCSF Medical students. And for those, who are nerds at heart (myself included), it was equivalent to research "show and tell."

Milberry Gym was transformed into the UCSF Summer Research Symposium headquarters, complete with a easel for poster displaying, a stage, and smorgasbord of food. It took me back to the days of undergraduate research, national conferences, and presentations of research findings. Feels like another lifetime.

The posters were shiny and colorful, displaying a diversity of topics, everything from the basic science of neurological conditions to the analysis of global poverty.

My poster could be found among the sea of posters right under the basketball hoop. I had the pleasure of studying cervical cancer and HPV infection over the summer and produced a pretty poster to summarize 8 weeks of work into chunks of information and images.

If you ever find yourself at a research symposium and want to know the essence of any research poster and are intimidated by either the presenter guarding the poster, or just do not feel like being bogged down by endless details that you will invariably forget the moment you walk two steps to the right to view the next poster, I give you this one piece of advice: read the title (it says it all).

For example, my poster was titled: "Identifying Immunosuppressive Mechanisms in the Mucosa of HPV-infected histologically normal Cervix." I know its a moutful, but long, incomprehensible titles are the latest fad in science. And my research can basically summed in this one line.

What I found most amusing is when I was asked to give the "1 minute summary" of the research. Wow! It definitely takes some creativity to tell the story of HPV and cervical cancer and my project in such a short amount of time. And repeating the same story numerous time never lost its novelty.

I really enjoyed learning about my classmate's research interests, which is quite impressive, especially the Dean's Prize Winners, who have really made strides in their fields. Special congratulations, to Stephanie C, a fellow UCSF Med Student blogger. Also, sharing my research with the UCSF Community was an honor and pleasure.

I look forward to the next Research Day!