…spent the AY 1997-1998 in Joseph Bonventre’s laboratory at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Renal Unit, Harvard University, Boston, as part of the BMEP program. Upon completion of the PJ at UMDNJ in Newark (Surgery), the MGH in Boston (Internal Medicine) and the KiSpi in Zürich (Pediatrics), he returned to the US for a residency. As part of the Internal Medicine Subspecialty Research Pathway, he was an Intern and Resident at Montefiore Hospital, Albert-Einstein College of Medicine, in The Bronx, NY, and from 2001 onwards completed subspecialty training in nephrology at the MGH and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) in Boston. In 2005 he obtained a staff position at the BWH and an Instructor faculty rank at Harvard Medical School. He has successfully applied to several fellowship research grants, and is currently funded by an Amercian Heart Association Fellow-to-Faculty Transition Award.
Dirk’s initial work in collaboration with a post-doc in Dr. Bonventre’s laboratory focused on transcriptional regulation. During his fellowship Dirk focused on a new model organism for kidney injury, larval zebrafish. At this developmental stage zebrafish have a single glomerulus and two renal tubules. He developed the methodology to quantify renal function in larval zebrafish, and documented that the tubular and glomerular response to injury are very similar to those seen in mammals. Currently, he is building his own research group utilizing quantitative assays to analyze developmental phenotypes. A more recent interest regards the question of stem cells in adult zebrafish kidneys, as these in contrast to human kidneys can form new nephrons after injury.
Through his experience with BMEP Dirk has come to enjoy the summer in Maine, and spends four weeks each year in the Mount Desert Island Biology Laboratory to think about and try “new things”.

- no entry available -

The Lobster Connection
Sometimes I look back and wonder how this 'Berliner' has ended up in "Downeast" Maine. Nowadays, I am a cardiologist in private practice in Bangor, serving 400,000 people together with my 15 partners. Eleven years ago, I was a 'green' medical student with the plan to become a gastroenterologist. It has become blatantly obvious that although the path to the now was convoluted, my time with the BMEP was a major determinant. It began with my mentor, who had been with the BMEP, and thus I knew what to do, or thought I did. I had already started my doctoral thesis and the choice to continue in that field – hepatology- was an obvious one. My choice of city – New York – was inspired by an earlier visit.
My time with the BMEP started with four days September 1995 on Mount Desert Island in Maine, 45 minutes from my current practice, followed by several months of research and one clinical month in New York at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM). My experience was very positive, and apart from the expected culture shock, it resulted in a poster presentation and eventually a publication.
Looking back, I think I had always had planned to return to the US for research. I also took the United States Medical Licensing Examinations (USMLE) Step 1 and 2. This originated more from a feeling of "it cannot hurt and might help" than any concrete plans to visit the US for clinical postgraduate work. However, I reached a junction where I was very frustrated with the hierarchical and cumbersome structure of German post graduate education (my 18 month as a glorified phlebotomist with no formal didactics may have contributed), and with one job running out and a next one not clearly defined, I sent out my applications for a medical residency in the US. From my clinical experience in the US I knew that US training was much less hierarchical and much more structured. This team approach appealed to me. I was able to secure a pre-match position at one of the AECOM training programs, not the least which I attribute to the recommendation of my former research mentor. My clinical orientation changed and I continued onto a cardiology fellowship at the University of Washington in Seattle. Meanwhile, married to a US citizen but was nevertheless on a J-1 visa that required me to work 3 years in an underserved population, I interviewed nationwide and settled on beautiful Maine, thus closing the circle that has started 12 years ago.
I cherish my BMEP experience, without which I may not be where I am today. Although I am not in academics today, training in analytical thought processes during my research experience has sharpened my clinical skills as well. I believe that understanding basic science research is vital in keeping up with the next 30 years of medical innovation.

Cutting Edge Immunotherapy in New Hampshire
For the past 10 years, the BMEP has been intimately involved with the cancer biology and immunotherapy group at Dartmouth Medical School. Our laboratory is run by Dr. Marc Ernstoff, Chief of Section Immunotherapy, and Dr. Thomas Schwaab, Associate Professor of Medicine and Urology.
We focus on translational research involving immunotherapeutic regimens in the treatment of metastatic melanoma, prostate and kidney cancer. Over the past 10 years, we have piloted a number of cutting edge immunotherapy trials. Our latest clinical trial, a Dendritic Cell Vaccine for Metastatic Kidney Cancer, has shown the most impressive clinical results reported to date in this disease. This trial was based directly on research done in 1997 and 1998 while Dr. Schwaab was sponsored by the BMEP.
We are entirely funded through NIH-grants and private sponsorship. The laboratory consists of three technicians, and focuses on cell culture methods, T cell cloning, complex flow cytometry and functional T cell assays. Dr. Adrian Schwarzer, who was sponsored by BMEP for AY 2006-2007, was recently instrumental in establishing molecular techniques which allow us to perform gene chip microarrays. Any post-doc or Ph.D. student is welcome to participate in our research activity at anytime. Although we are a small laboratory, we are extremely productive and truly cutting edge.
We are located approximately 2 hours north of Boston in New Hampshire and are affiliated with Dartmouth Medical School and Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. The Dartmouth College campus is located 2 miles down the road in picturesque Hanover. Outdoor activities are abundant: hiking, biking, canoeing, cross country skiing, sailing. The closest ski area is 3 miles away and 10 major ski areas are within 1 hour driving distance.
The website is: http://www.cancer.dartmouth.edu/research/immunology/index.shtml

...participated in the BMEP program in AY2000-2001, joining the lab of Miguel Coca-Prados, Department of Ophthalmology, Yale School of Medicine. During his stay he was introduced to members of Yale’s neuroscience community and was offered a research position in the Department of Neurosurgery. Upon completion of his final year of medical training and graduation from Berlin’s Free University in 2002 Guido Wollmann returned to Yale where he would pursue his research career as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Anthony van den Pol’s lab in the Department of Neurosurgery and joined Yale’s Brain Tumor Center. He was instrumental in establishing the oncolytic virus and neuro-virology section in that department. His main focus is the exploration of replication competent non-human viruses for use as therapeutic agents against malignant brain tumors. The interface of neuro-virology and neuro-oncology is as fascinating as it is challenging and may hold great potential for future clinical application. As current treatment modalities for malignant brain tumors fail to provide significant survival benefit, alternative approaches are urgently needed. Oncolytic viruses alone or in conjunction with gene therapy have been subject to much-justified hope in the field of oncolytic therapy. However, due to its delicate nature and its immune limitations, therapeutic virus applications in the brain have been particularly difficult. Guido Wollmann’s work of the last 5 years has resulted in several major publications and significantly contributed to the recognition of Anthony van den Pol’s lab, which recently was awarded two major NIH grants. He is currently working on his US medical residency application and plans to pursue a career as a Physician Scientist in the field of Neuro-oncology.