2020-2021 STEM Chateaubriand Fellowship, Anna Gams, Graduate Student Highlight!

 BME doctoral student Anna Gams, advised by Dr. Igor Efimov (BME), has been awarded a 2020-2021 STEM Chateaubriand Fellowship. The Chateaubriand Fellowship is a grant offered by the Embassy of France in the United States. It supports outstanding Ph.D. students from American universities who wish to conduct research in France for four to nine months. Chateaubriand fellows are selected in a merit-based competition, through a collaborative process involving expert evaluators in both countries.Dr. Igor Efimov (BME); members of his lab, Kedar Aras, Anna Gams, and Aaron Koppel; and their collaborators have published the following journal article: D. Smirnov, A. Pikunov, R. Syunyaev, R. Deviatiiarov, O. Gusev, K. Aras, A. Gams, A. Koppel, and I. R. Efimov. “Genetic algorithm-based personalized models of human cardiac action potential,” PLoS ONE. Published May 11, 2020. The paper presents a novel modeling technique based on the genetic algorithm that enables the construction of personalized cardiac function models using patient gene expression data. This model is another step toward personalized medicine since it can be used in patient-specific cardiac therapy development and drug testing