Daniel Heilpern-Mallory

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I am currently a research technician in the laboratory of Dr. Irene Ghobrial in the medical oncology department at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Our lab studies hematological malignancies (blood cancers) such as Multiple Myeloma and Waldenströms Macroglobulinemia. My work in the lab is directly mentored by an instructor who has a few particular projects I am currently working on. Currently, it is all wet-lab experiments with single-cell RNA sequencing, which essentially allows us to determine what genes are being expressed in cancer cells at a particular time, and thus to disentangle genetic variants that contribute to disease progression from precursor states to active states. I’ll also be doing some work with immune sequencing, and perhaps some CRISPR work, but I am still brainstorming some ideas.

I had a very multimodal education at SMC, and bridged a few different departments I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to if I were anywhere else. The small collaborative environment of the MA/ST/DS and BI/CH/BC departments meant that I got a lot more one-on-one, or time for close collaborations, with professors and other students that truly shaped what I learned and my understanding of the different paths through science I could take, and certainly stoked my curiosity in areas of science I didn’t even know existed! I certainly didn’t know about the possibility of an MD-PhD before I started exploring the choices with different professors. In the future, I look forward to applying to MD-PhD programs, which is my ultimate goal.