Curtis L. Baysinger, M.D.
Med student wins Endocrine Society fellowship
Robert Thiele, a second-year medical student, has been awarded one of 25 Summer Research Fellowships by The Endocrine Society. The fellowships are awarded to provide laboratory experience, summer income and to allow the students to conduct research in endocrinology, instead of working in an unrelated field.
“I’m looking forward to continue working in Dr. [S.K.] Dey’s lab. We’re trying to understand what genes are up-regulated and down-regulated in a receptive uterus. We want to characterize the genes in uterine receptivity to increase the success of in vitro fertilization,” Thiele said.
Right now, techniques used to harvest eggs may actually be making in vitro fertilization more difficult, according to Thiele. He is working with S.K. Dey, Ph.D., Dorothy Overall Wells Professor of Pediatrics and professor of Cell & Developmental Biology and Pharmacology, to determine if drugs used during the process may actually be making the uterus less receptive.
“Bob shows great promise to become a clinician-scientist in his professional career. He is very sincere in his efforts and dedicated to his responsibilities,” Dey said. “Because of his dedication, he generated exciting preliminary results that helped him in competing for this Summer Research Fellowship…Bob is the first medical student in my lab who has been awarded this fellowship.
“His success, I believe, will inspire other medical students to compete for these or other fellowships to pursue research during their medical school education.”