Avik Som, a second-year student in the Medical Scientist Training Program at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been invited to attend the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting this summer in Lindau, Germany.
The meeting, June 28-July 3, will bring together 70 Nobel laureates and more than 670 young scientists. It is meant to foster mentorship between the two groups and collaboration among peers.
Som, who is working toward his medical and doctoral degrees, studies the effects of a tumor’s microenvironment on the growth and death of cancer cells.
He said he looks forward to meeting Nobel laureates J. Michael Bishop, MD, who studies how cancer forms, and Peter Agre, MD, who discovered the channels through which water moves in and out of cells. Diseases such as epilepsy, cystic fibrosis and heart arrhythmias have been linked to disruptions in this process.
“What I want to do is learn how these guys think and maybe apply it to my own research,” Som said. “The meeting also offers the potential for collaborations across the world that you normally don’t get this early in your career.”