For the past three years, I have been conducting neurobiology research in the Systems Neuroscience Center with Dr. Christi Kolarcik. We are investigating the patterns of degeneration in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Patients with ALS experience progressive paralysis, thus losing the ability to walk, talk, and eventually, to breathe. Currently, the cause of ALS is unknown, and there is no cure.
Our research takes a systems-level approach, treating the entire nervous system like a circuit. By using viral tracers, we are able to outline the neural circuitry involved in controlling a particular muscle. Then, using an animal model for the disease, we look for areas of degeneration and synapse failure. My work in particular focuses on creating 3D maps of this neural circuitry, with special attention given to the innervation differences between fast and slow-twitch muscles. It is our hope that this research will help to isolate where ALS initiates, as well as identify possible locations for treatment.
Dr. Kolarcik and I have been true partners and collaborators for the entire process. We both independently analyze tissue and compare our final results, identifying together possible avenues of further investigation. Through this research, I have learned how to formulate precise questions, and how to design experiments to answer those questions. Furthermore, through my presentations at conferences such as the Biomedical Engineering Society Annual Meeting, I have learned how to present complex data in understandable ways to a variety of audiences.
In addition to being a medical researcher, Dr. Kolarcik is also President of the ALS Association of Western Pennsylvania. Through our work together, she has introduced me to the ALS community, who experience unique challenges as sufferers of a rare and fatal disease. Over the years, the ALS community has become near and dear to my heart, and they inspire everything I do – both in my scientific research and my future health policy endeavors. I want to reform the health care system in part because I have seen how poorly it meets the needs of ALS patients. In global health, a useful indicator of the strength of a health system is the well-being of its most vulnerable population. My experiences with ALS patients have shown just how starkly the our health care system fails our most week and vulnerable.
Even though my research has been scientific in nature, I have learned a great deal about global and public health. Dr. Kolarcik and I both work with the ALS community in mind, and we invite ALS patients and their families to learn about and participate in our research. In this way, we are practicing the global health principle of community involvement and health equity, both of which I plan to carry forward in my career as a health justice advocate.