Biography

My volunteer experience at San Francisco General Hospital largely inspired my decision to pursue medical science and sparked my interest in cancer. Patients often told me about how cancer had devastated their families, and how treatments were out of reach financially. I developed an academic interest in cancer from research talks given at a summer internship, after which I began to realize the rather horrifying prospect of how little we know about cancer. These experiences have driven me to pursue cancer immunology research, which I believe is one of the most promising frontiers for better treatments that utilize the body’s own immune defenses to fight cancer. At Cambridge, I studied the role of the Hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway, which is abnormally activated in a number of cancers and has been shown to play a key role in immune responses to cancer, in natural killer (NK) cells. I conducted my MPhil work in the lab of Dr. Maike de la Roche at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute. Currently, I am an MD/PhD student at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, USA, and my long term goal is to become an independent physician-scientist. Aside from science and medicine, my interests include music, travel, golf, running, and writing. I am incredibly grateful to be a part of the Gates Cambridge community and wholeheartedly accept its commitment to improving the lives of others.

Previous Education

University of California, Berkeley

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderbyungsukkim