Shrewsbury Student at Wellesley College Researches Rare Condition During Clinical Research Study
| For
immediate release: November 1, 2007 |
Contact:
Molly Tarantino, |
WELLESLEY, Mass.— Your feet have grown two sizes in a year, you can no longer fit a ring on your finger and your height is approaching seven feet.
Wellesley College sophomore Zehra Omer encountered these ailments daily during her summer research in endocrinology. Omer’s study focused on a rare hormonal disorder, acromegaly, which develops when there is too much growth hormone in the body.
“While acromegaly is marked by enlargement in the size of the hands, feet and jaws, patients are more concerned about their cardiovascular condition,” said Omer, a neuroscience and Middle Eastern studies major. “Too much growth hormone leads to thickening of the heart walls and stiffening of the blood vessels, which may be related to increased levels of inflammatory cytokines, and markers of endothelial dysfunction in the blood.”
Omer, daughter of Fatma and Abdulkadir Omer of Shrewsbury, Mass., will review the learning that took place while conducting a clinical research study at Massachusetts General Hospital during her presentation, “Help! My Shoes No Longer Fit… And Neither Does My Heart!,” at the 2007 Tanner Conference at Wellesley College Tuesday, Nov. 6.
Omer helped with patient visits, recruitment, data analysis and literature review during her time with the study. She would try to make sense of the irregularities in the data and recognize trends or correlations in certain biochemical markers and factors such as the duration of the disease, drugs that the patient takes and treatment they underwent in the past.
During her first experience with clinical research, Omer encountered many of the common challenges— including recruiting patients with the rare condition. Ultimately, she had experience she was looking for, which came from discussing data with doctors on the study and interacting with patients.
“Everyone had told me that I really can’t do clinical research before medical school and that the studies go on for years and years, but it seemed more appealing to me than sitting at a lab bench all summer,” Omer said. “So, I gave it a shot.”
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