Hi! My name is Riya Sharma and I’m a rising junior. I’m majoring in neuroscience with a chemistry minor, and working on fulfilling the global health certificate. I am on the pre-med track and hope to attend medical school once I graduate! Currently, I volunteer at Planned Parenthood and as an EMT back home in New Jersey. Some of my hobbies include running, writing, and trying new restaurants. My recommendations are Noodlehead, Thai Me Up, and Nicky’s Thai Kitchen – can you guess my favorite type of food?

I work in the Shea Lab, under Dr. Susan Shea, in the Trauma and Transfusion Medicine Research Center. In general, the lab studies hemostasis through the use of microfluidic devices, which allow us to study clot formation and lysis under blood flow. My project this summer will involve testing therapies, such as BB-031 and DiNAC, intended to target stroke clots. Nearly 800,000 people experience a stroke annually in the United States, resulting in a significant burden of death and disability. Currently, rtPA is the only FDA approved drug on the market for stroke treatment and it has a few factors that limit its effectiveness. The first one is that it only works for a short period of time after a stroke occurs, and that excludes more than 90% of patients when they arrive at the hospital. Furthermore, rtPA can cause unintended bleeding in the brain. Lastly, reformation of a clot can occur after treatment. Both BB-031 and DiNAC target von Willebrand factor, a critical component of stroke components, and they work differently than rtPA. I’ll be testing the effectiveness of BB-031 and DiNAC as potential therapies for stroke on their own as well as how they may work with rtPA. 

I am grateful to have received the HSRF for this summer because it will help me devote more of my time towards my research. As someone who intends to go into the medical field, the opportunity to conduct research on such a detrimental disease has given me a deeper understanding about the pathology of the disease as well as the treatment process. I’ll be able to apply the critical thinking skills I use as a researcher on a daily basis to my patients in the future. Outside of research, the fellowship promotes collaboration with other students which will broaden my perspective and allow me to gain insight into fields that I may not be familiar with. Overall, I hope to gain valuable skills from this fellowship that will be beneficial to me as a researcher for the next few years, and then during my career as a doctor.