MD-Ph.D. Class of 2013 - Harvard Medical School - Harvard University

HARVARD M.D.-Ph.D. PROGRAM Class of 2013Vikram PattanayakMy story starts in California, where I entered the world blessed witha loving father, mother, and brother. I spent almost all of my childhood inNiskayuna, New York, about three hours north of New York City. On thefirst day of my junior year of high school, a wonderful girl sat to my left inthe trombone section of our school band. That non-random, but extremelyfortunate encounter, would eventually lead to marriage (with help in proposingfrom a dynamic Siberian Husky).At the University of Pennsylvania, I was a Vagelos scholar under thetutelage of Ponzy Lu and my research advisor, the late Alan Gewirtz. Myproject to identify RNA target sites for antisense DNAs was my first foray intomolecular methods. At Harvard, I worked with my Ph.D. advisor, David Liu,and collaborator, Keith Joung, to develop an in vitro selection to study thespecificity of endonucleases that are potential gene therapeutics.All of the people (and animals) I have mentioned, in addition to myfriends, family, classmates, and labmates, from Niskayuna, Penn, Harvard,and elsewhere, have shaped me as a person, a scientist, and future physician.Whether staying up all night working on fantasy baseball rules, a ScienceOlympiad project, an electromagnetism problem set, or a profile of zinc fingernuclease specificity, I am grateful to have been surrounded by such incrediblepeople for my entire life. I look forward to adding to this list as a clinicalpathology resident next year at Massachusetts General Hospital.19