Glimpse of the UCSF Breast Care Center

Happy New Year everyone!!!

It’s been roughly 6 months since I started my project 55 fellowship at the UCSF Breast Care Center and I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend my gap year between college and medical school. Matt and Alyse have done a great job of describing components of our job that we all share at the BCC, such as Decision Services, so I’ll talk a little more about some specific projects that I’m working on.

My position is sort of unique in that I work at two different UCSF campuses. For half of the week I am at Mount Zion with Matt and Alyse, and for the other half of the week I am at Parnassus, which is UCSF’s main campus. While being split between two different campuses can be at times hectic and crazy, I’m thankful for the different projects that I’ve been able to work on at the two locations. At Mount Zion, I work on two clinical studies, one of which involves consenting patients for collection of blood and bone marrow samples while they are sedated in the operating room. This is really cool because it allows me to have patient contact and view surgeries. I’m also working on some other projects looking into the role of the immune system in breast cancer and how the presence of different immune cells in the tumor may affect prognosis.

At Parnassus, I am working in a bioengineering lab, which is a completely new experience for me. I did get a MSE certificate so the engineering world isn’t completely foreign to me but there is definitely a steep learning curve. My project involves looking at the mechanical effects of intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT) on the tumor microenvironment. IORT is a relatively new procedure of delivering radiation to the patient while they are in the operating room. After the tumor is taken out of the breast, an applicator is inserted into the tissue cavity where radiation is then locally delivered. The applicator then comes out after which the surgeon can close up the incision. By using the tissue that the surgeon takes out from the breast right before and after delivering radiation, we can look into the effects of radiation on tissue composition and organization as well as changes in cell to cell signaling.

Besides the work I am doing, I am loving San Francisco and trying to take advantage of all it has to offer! The city is an awesome place to live with so much diversity and culture. Public transportation can take you anywhere in the city and there’s always a bunch of events that are open to the public on the weekends. I’m looking forward to further exploring SF and all it has to offer in the next 6 months and will update everyone again!