Ossining Science Students Invited to Memorial Sloan Kettering

Juliet Ivanov and Lorenzo Muranelli, two Ossining High School Fundamentals of Science Research students, have been invited to tour the labs of three prominent physicians and scientists at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and learn about recent advances in blood cancer research. The April 2 tour, discussion and dinner event is sponsored by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Both students are doing research at Memorial Sloan Kettering relating to cancer and the complications that follow treatments for diseases like leukemia and lymphoma, science research teacher Valerie Holmes said.

Ivanov, a senior, received first prize at the 30th Annual Upstate New York Junior Science and Humanities Symposium earlier this month and will compete in the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium. She has conducted research as a summer intern in Memorial Sloan Kettering’s van den Brink Laboratory, which is devoted to improving bone marrow transplantation. Muranelli, a sophomore, will work in a Memorial Sloan Kettering lab this summer on a cancer research project.

Each of the three doctors who will be leading the tour and discussion has received grants from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society because they are qualified investigators who have shown a capacity for independent, sustained original investigation in the field of hematologic malignancies, according to the organization. Dr. Scott Armstrong, a pediatric oncologist, is director of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Leukemia Center; Dr. Ross Levine, a physician-scientist, is the Laurence Joseph Dineen Chair in Leukemia Research; and Dr. Scott Lowe, a biologist, is chair of the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center.

JT McFadden of Pleasantville, who is a candidate for the Connecticut Westchester Hudson Valley Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Man of the Year, said he asked Ossining High School if it wanted to send any students because of the caliber of its Science Research program. Others who will be attending the event include Man & Woman of the Year candidates, board of trustee members and potential donors.

“What I asked these particular science students to do is go back and tell the school what an opportunity they were given and how they can relate that to what they do now, and get the students in their program to get as excited about curing blood cancer as I am about fundraising for it,” said McFadden, adding he would also like them to help the school Interact Club, part of the Ossining Rotary Club, with fundraising.

The mission of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, founded in 1949, is to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma, and to improve the quality of life for patients and their families. The group has invested more than $1 billion in cancer research.

Candidates for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Man & Woman of the Year spend 10 weeks raising as much money as they can in honor of children who are blood cancer survivors. Each dollar counts as one vote, and all of the money goes to the development of new cures for blood cancer, McFadden said.