Third Year Student Receives Two Research Awards

l to r -Dr. Robert Lowe Orly and Dr. David McAneny.
(L to r) Dr. Robert Lowe, Orly Leiva and Dr. David McAneny recognizing Leiva’s Alpha Omega Alpha fellowship award.

Orly Leiva, Jr., a third-year medical student, recently received the Alpha Omega Alpha Carolyn L. Kuckein Student Research Fellowship Award and the American Society of Hematology 2016 Hematology Opportunities for the Next-Generation of Research Scientists (HONORS) award.

The Carolyn L. Kuckein Student Research Fellowship emphasizes a student-designed and initiated project with an academic mentor. Leiva will receive a $5,000 award, with $1,000 available for travel to a national meeting to present the research results.

The HONORS Award is intended for medical students and residents with an interest in hematology research. The award provides a $5,000 stipend to conduct either a short hematology research project for a maximum of three months, or a longer hematology research project between three and 12 months. Recipients also receive $1,000 each year for two years to support attendance at the ASH annual meeting.

Leiva attended Wright State University in Fairborn, Ohio, and participated in the Biomedical Scholars Training and Research (BioSTAR) program, where he was introduced to the world of research. During his junior and senior years, he worked in a research lab at the Boonshoft School of Medicine at Wright State University.

During the summer between his first and second year at BUSM, Levia received a National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases Medical Student Research Fellowship to investigate novel detection of T cell reactivity in type 1 diabetes at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.

Levia plans to complete his fourth year of medical school over a two year span in order to devote substantial time for his research. He’s working in the lab of Katya Ravid, DSc, PhD, investigating the effects of lysyl-oxidase (an enzyme vital to collagen synthesis) inhibition in an experimental model of myelofibrosis, a myeloproliferative neoplasm of platelet precursor cells that cause scarring of the bone marrow leading to severe anemia and white blood cell deficiency and is rapidly fatal.