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Karthika Venugopalan is a 2nd-year medical student at Lincoln Memorial University – DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine (LMU-DCOM) in Tennessee. Before medical school, she spent 2 years at Quest Diagnostics in a Leadership Development Program, which focused on operations-based project management and continuous improvement initiatives. This experience sparked her interest in laboratory medicine and deepened her passion for pathology. She is fascinated by the world of pathology, and its profound impact on patients’ lives – every “patient” (slide) tells a unique story, and each diagnosis can significantly influence a patient’s care plan/treatment trajectory.

This summer, she spent 8 weeks in the Klionsky Pathology Summer Research Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh, under the mentorship of Dr. Michael Becich and Dr. Ye Ye on the NMVB team. She is incredibly grateful for the knowledge and experiences she has gained during her time with this fantastic team. NMVB plays a crucial role in patient care for those with mesothelioma, and she is glad to have contributed in a small but meaningful way. She learned about pathology informatics, computational pathology, the research process, and mesothelioma – a rare, aggressive form of cancer.

Her primary focus this summer was to establish a framework and explore the integration potential of Prov-GigaPath, a foundational model created by Microsoft, with the National Mesothelioma Virtual Bank (NMVB). By developing this integration framework, the goal is to gain deeper insights into mesothelioma, enhancing research outcomes and improving data sharing capabilities through collaboration with other institutions and researchers. The study aims to create more enhanced and robust workflows for integration. This will enable researchers to handle large datasets effectively and will drive forward innovations in computational pathology.

She is deeply grateful for this opportunity and excited about the future of pathology informatics and digital pathology. She looks forward to applying the knowledge and skills she has gained from her summer experiences as she continues her journey to becoming a pathologist.