THE 'M' IN STEM: Victoria
The world of mathematical biology…
For as long as I remember, I always looked up to my grandmother. She was a doctor and I always thought that I wanted to follow in her footsteps. At four years old, I was already learning how to measure blood pressure with her guidance, and because of the example she set for me, in elementary school, I was already inseparable from an anatomy book. Starting college, I was sure I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and I was eager to start taking pre-med classes and beginning the long journey it takes to become a doctor. But soon after I started taking these classes, I realized that medicine was not the field for me.
Fortunately, there is no time better than college to figure out exactly what you want to do. While I was in college, I decided to try a little bit of everything, and one of the activities I enjoyed most was doing research. One of my first projects was using math to try to help understand why people have glaucoma, a disease that impairs vision. Currently, treatments only help with one of the causes of the disease, high ocular pressure, but other causes are not treated at all. Using math, I was able to develop a model that would tell me the importance of other factors, such as Carbon dioxide concentration in the retina, that are not possible to test in people. Now, it is known that Carbon dioxide concentration, is in fact an important factor in the progression of this disease.
On the other hand, I have learned that I do not need to be a doctor to help people. As a mathematical biologist, I can use my knowledge of math to investigate a cornucopia of phenomena that are much harder to study in real patients. Currently, I am working on a project that strives to better chemotherapy treatments for patients with cancer. I use math to develop a model of how the human body and tumor interact, and then model different treatments to see which one would be best. And all of this is done on my computer without having to have a single actual patient! The world of mathematical biology is an exciting and powerful place that is full of opportunities, and I invite you all to join me here.
About the Author: Victoria Gershuny, 23, is a Ph.D. candidate studying Applied Math at the University of Arizona. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado. When she is not doing math, she loves to dance and go up to the mountains.
