Open To Collaborate
"As a physician you can only reach so many people. As a researcher you can reach millions."
Interview and article by Pamela Pont
Khush Shah is a third-year medical student who loves the part of research most people dread: the writing. He has an active Discovery Lab project and systematic review experience, but no way to reach the labs doing the work he wants to join.
Open to collaboration. Khush is a third-year medical student in clinical rotations with three years of hands-on laboratory research, plus case reports and systematic reviews with practicing OB/GYNs, and a cancer immunology internship at the Magee-Womens Research Institute. He joined the Research Exchange, a platform that connects researchers with collaborators, with his own Discovery Lab project. Now he wants a gynecologic cancer research team that needs literature synthesis, data extraction, or manuscript writing.
Where he is: Third year medical student, currently rotating. He is not seeking a residency, a degree program, or a formal supervisor. He wants a defined role on a project, scoped to fit alongside rotations, with expectations agreed in advance.
What Khush is looking for
A defined role on a gynecologic cancer project. Before joining, he wants to know what the researcher needs and whether he can deliver it. He would rather decline a poor fit than waste a lab's time, which makes him a low-risk collaborator for a PI who has been burned by an enthusiastic student before.
Literature synthesis and manuscript work. Labs generate this work constantly and rarely have anyone eager to do it. If you have a review sitting half-finished, or findings that need writing up, this is a direct match.
Data extraction and analysis. He has done data extraction before, and his Discovery Lab project comes with compute credits, so he can work with open access gynecologic cancer data sets without any setup.
A clinical perspective. A medical student in rotations sees clinical problems firsthand, and a researcher has the technical expertise to investigate them, but the two rarely meet. Khush is in clinic now and wants to be the clinical end of that loop.
Mentorship, and a way past the cold email. His barrier is access, not motivation. Researchers have no reason to answer a stranger's cold email, and an introduction through the Exchange solves what he hasn't managed alone.
What Khush brings
Writing and synthesis, the rarest offer here. Most research volunteers want to be at the bench. Khush prefers data extraction and manuscript writing. For a lab with more results than writing capacity, that preference is the value.
Methods experience across both ends of research. He spent three years studying embryo development in chick embryos as an undergraduate, then moved to clinical research with OB/GYN collaborators. He has seen how a question moves from the lab to the literature.
Training in a gynecologic cancer lab. In his second year of medical school, he completed a three-month internship with Dr. Sandra Cascio, a cancer immunologist at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center and the Magee-Womens Research Institute whose work covers endometrial, breast, and ovarian cancer. He arrives already oriented to the field.
Already set up. His Discovery Lab project has a compute budget and open access data sets, and he has started his own work. A collaborator does not need to onboard him.
Willingness to learn what a project needs. Asked whether he would pick up an unfamiliar skill, he did not hedge. Paired with his insistence on clear expectations, that describes someone who wants the collaboration to work, not just to be on it.
Background
Khush is now in his third year of medical school and in clinical rotations, which he describes as demanding and exhilarating in equal measure, mostly for the shift from theory into practice.
His research has moved steadily toward gynecologic oncology: from embryology as an undergraduate, to obstetrics-focused clinical research with nearby OB/GYNs, and then into cancer.
The pull toward this field is not abstract. Khush is from India, where cervical cancer kills tens of thousands of women a year despite being one of the most preventable cancers. He is precise about why: limited awareness of the vaccine, thin screening infrastructure in rural areas, and biopsy and treatment costs that put care out of reach. He notes that rural parts of the United States face versions of the same barriers.
A preventable disease and a set of solvable access problems moved him from wanting to treat patients to wanting to study the problem. As he puts it, a physician can help the patients in front of them, while research can reach people the physician will never meet.
In his own words
If you were paired with a researcher doing exactly the work you're interested in, what would you want to establish first?
I would first want to know what exactly my role would be in the project, what the expectations are from the researcher, and how I can be helpful to the lab. If there is something the researcher wants that I cannot offer, or I just don't have that skill set, I don't think it's a worthwhile experience. So the understanding should be mutual, known to both the researcher and myself.
And if a project needed a skill you didn't have yet?
I would love to learn it. I'm a lifelong learner. I always like to learn new skills and new things which could benefit the outcome or the final project.
What first brought gynecologic cancer research onto your radar?
I come from India, and we have very high rates of cervical cancer, which is very preventable with the vaccine. That's what drew me toward this kind of research, because there are so many deaths that could have been prevented.
There is not enough awareness that the cancer exists and that there is a vaccine for it. I believe there are almost 80,000 deaths that occur every year from cervical cancer in India, and many more cases diagnosed every year. These are numbers that can be brought down to zero, but there is not enough awareness, and testing is not adequate in rural places. So many cases just never get diagnosed, and finally when they're stage four, that's when they find out.
Why research rather than clinical practice alone?
A cancer diagnosis can basically flip your life upside down, and you need a lot of care and support at that time. If I can be a support system for the patient, that would be a great purpose. But I was also more interested in research because as a physician you can only target so many people and better their health outcomes. As a researcher you can target millions of people worldwide and help them improve their lives.
What would you bring to a research team as a medical student specifically?
I bring curiosity - in doing the research, finding papers, finding data, exploring it and analyzing it. I also have laboratory research experience as well as experience analyzing data.
Has anyone shaped how you approach this work?
In my second year of medical school, I did a research internship under Dr. Sandra Cascio at the Magee-Women’s Research Institute in Pittsburgh. She was a very good mentor - a cancer immunologist whose primary focus is endometrial, breast, and ovarian cancer - and she was a guiding light for me.
The one thing that really stands out is that she taught me not to be scared. To think outside the box and to try new things. If a method has never been tried before, you should not run away from it just because there isn't enough written about it. She also taught me to take risks, because that's how you learn.
What can a platform like the Research Exchange offer that isn't already available?
It improves data accessibility significantly. In the United States especially, it's hard, with HIPAA and lots of rules and regulations around accessing data. This platform lets researchers make that connection and do the research without those barriers.
It also bridges different perspectives. A medical student may recognize a clinical problem, and the researcher has the technical expertise to investigate it. That's a loop that would help expand ovarian cancer research and other gynecologic cancers.
Get in touch
If you have a systematic review or manuscript that needs a committed writer, data that needs extracting, or a project that would benefit from a clinical perspective, Khush would welcome the conversation. He will ask what you need before saying yes.