2025 Research Paper Prize Competition

2025 Medical Student Research Paper Prize Recipients 
 

Abramson Cancer Center basic science research prize – Graham Lobel 

Title: Glutamine is critical for the maintenance of type 1 conventional dendritic cells in normal tissue and the tumor microenvironment

 

Abramson Cancer Center clinical/translational research prize – Lucy Wang 

Title: Comparing Survival in Trial- Versus Routine-Care Advanced Urothelial Cancer Patients onImmune Checkpoint Blockade

 

AI and Informatics in Medicine – Chetan Vadali

Title: Improving the Detection of Mild Cognitive Impairment with FlowGAN: a Framework for ASL to FDG-PET Image Synthesis

 

Balduin Lucke Memorial Prize – Kelly Martins

Title: Prevalent and Disseminated Recombinant and Wild-Type Adeno-Associated Virus Integration in Macaques and Humans

  

Celso-Ramon Garcia Award for Outstanding Women’s Health Research –  Alex Chen

Title: Narrating Humor and Persuasion in Biological Safety Cartoons

 

Celso-Ramon Garcia Award for Outstanding Women’s Health Research – Isabel Yoon 

Title: Association of neighborhood deprivation with stage at diagnosis and treatment delay forbreast cancer in Philadelphia

 

Clinical Epidemiology Research Prize – Patrick Liu

Title: Genetic variants associated with chronic fatigue syndrome predict population-levelfatigue severity and actigraphic measurements

 

Creskoff Prize – Ben Kahn

Title: Hemodynamic forces prevent myxomatous valve diseasethrough KLF2/4 signaling

 

Creskoff Prize – Ayelet Rubenstein

Title: Immune-mediated thrombocytopenia and IL-6-mediated thrombocytosis observed in idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease

 

David B. P. Goodman Award – Yvonne Su

Title: A Large Language Model to Detect Negated Expressions in Radiology Reports

  

Emergency Medicine – Sarah Nessen

Title: Hospital security searches among patients with substance-related encounters

 

Gail Morrison Prize – Ana Acevedo

Title: Diversity-Focused Undergraduate Premedical Enrichment Programs: The Impact of Research Experiences

 

George W. Householder, III Memorial Prize – David Rekhtman

Title: The Effect of Donor Distance on Post-Transplant Mortality in the Modern Era

 

George W. Householder, III Memorial Prize – Jesse Pace

Title: Hemodynamic forces prevent myxomatous valve diseasethrough KLF2/4 signaling

 

ITMAT Prize for Clinical/Translational Research – Sally Nijim

Title: The Current State of Rare Disease Drug Repurposing: A Mixed Methods Study

 

John G. Clark Prize – Jessica Lam

Title: YY1-controlled regulatory connectivity and transcriptionare influenced by the cell cycle

 

John Pryor Award for Trauma Research – Emily Alpert

Title: Variation in Use of Neuroimaging in the Care of Infants Undergoing SubspecialtyEvaluations for Abuse: A Multicenter Study

 

John R. Stanley Research Prize for Dermatology – Andrew Li

Title: Validity of ICD-10 codes for identifying patients with palmoplantar pustulosis: A retrospectivecohort study

 

John R. Stanley Research Prize for Dermatology – Casey Lee

Title: Fate induction in CD8 CAR T cells through asymmetric cell division

 

Jonathan Rhoads Prize for Surgical Scholarship – Keshav Shah

Title: Risk Factors for Plate Infection, Exposure, and Removal in Mandibular Reconstruction

 

Leonard Davis Institute’s William L. Kissick, MD, DrPH, Health Policy Research Prize – DanaRose Negro

Title: Caregiver Perspectives on Improving Government Nutrition Benefit Programs

 

Marc Levine Radiology Research Award – Mattia Mah'moud,

Title: Racial Differences in Background Parenchymal Enhancement

 

Mary Ellis Bell Prize – Rohan Palanki

Title: In utero delivery of targeted ionizable lipid nanoparticles facilitates in vivo geneediting of hematopoietic stem cells

 

Mary Ellis Bell Prize – Karen Xu

Title: Microinterfaces in biopolymer-based bicontinuous hydrogels guide rapid 3D cell migration

 

Neurosurgery Research Prize – Claudia Hejazi-Garcia

Title: The Social Deprivation Index and Lumbar Spine Surgery Outcomes

 

Neurosurgery Research Prize – Yusha Sun

Title: Brain-wide neuronal circuit connectome of human glioblastoma

 

O. H. Perry Pepper Prize – Danielle Brown

Title: Post-discharge Mental Healthcare and Emergency General Surgery Readmission for Patients with Serious Mental Illness

 

O. H. Perry Pepper Prize – Fola Sofela

Title: Effects of Nf1 on sleep behavior are mediated through starvation caused by deficits in SARM1dependent NAD+ metabolism

 

Orthopaedic Research Prize –  Harmon Khela

Title: The Impact of Mental Health Diagnoses on Postoperative Outcomes and Secondary Treatment Utilization Following Surgery for Adhesive Capsulitis: A Retrospective Large Database Analysis

 

Pediatric Research Prize – Ayan Mandal

Title: Normative trajectories of extra-axial cerebrospinal fluid during childhood and adolescence definedin a clinically-acquired MRI dataset

 

Pulmonary Research Prize – Yohan Kim

Title: Demographics and Socioeconomic Determinants of Health Predict Continued Participation in a CT Lung Cancer Screening Program

 

Renal Research Prize – Andrew Pregnall

Title: Mitochondrial OXPHOS restricts SARS-CoV-2 replication by limiting glycolytic capacity

 

Richard K. Root Prize for Infectious Disease Research – Yentli Soto Albrecht

Title: Mitochondrial OXPHOS restricts SARS-CoV-2 replication by limiting glycolytic capacity

 

Robert M. Toll Prize – Ashley Chang

Title: The Impact of Psychiatric Comorbidities on Outcomes and Quality of Life in Plastic Surgery: A Literature Review & Matched Analysis

 

Robert M. Toll Prize – David Dai

Title: Human Alzheimer’s Disease Reactive Astrocytes Exhibit a Loss of Homeostatic Gene

 

Rose Meadow Levinson Memorial Prize – Alex Nesbit

Title: Phenotypic spectrum and tumor risk in Simpson-Golabi-Behmel syndrome: Case series andcomprehensive literature review

 

Rose Meadow Levinson Memorial Prize – Shovik Bandyopadhay

Title: Mapping the Cellular Biogeography of Human Bone Marrow NichesUsing Single-Cell Transcriptomics and Proteomic Imaging

 

Roy G. Williams Award – Margo Orlen

Title: T-cell dependency of tumor regressions and complete responses withRAS(ON) multi-selective inhibition in preclinical models of PDAC

 

Roy G. Williams Award – Claudia Lovell

Title: Xist Deletion in B Cells Results in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Phenotypes

 

Stuart L. Fine Ophthalmology Medical Student Research Prize – Anusha Mamidipaka

Title: Outcomes of Trabeculectomy and Predictors of Success in Patients of African Ancestry

 

Stuart L. Fine Ophthalmology Medical Student Research Prize – Alan Huang

Title: Combination anti-PD-1 and anti-CTLA-4 therapy generates waves of clonal responses that include progenitor-exhausted CD8 + T cells

 

The Masters of Science in Health Policy Research Medical Student Award in Innovation & Implementation Research – Felicia Ho

Title: Heart donation and transplant recipient survival outcomes from deceased organ donors managed in donor care units versus hospitals

 

The Masters of Science in Health Policy Research Medical Student Award in Innovation & Implementation Research – Likhitha Kolla

Title: Extent and Impact of Performance Drift in a Nationally Deployed Population Health RiskAlgorithm in the Veterans Health Administration: A Retrospective Cohort Study, 2016-2021

 

William F. Jeffers Prize – Tim Cox

Title: Intestinal interoceptive dysfunction drives age associated cognitive decline

  

Prizes NOT AWARDED this year: 

Edward Raffensperger Research Prize

Peterman-Arnold Award for Endocrinology

The Masters of Science in Health Policy Research Medical Student Award in Community Engagement & Health Equity Research