Senior Andre Fan aims to become a doctor. His ultimate goal is to get both an MD and a PhD, and this last spring and summer, he took steps towards achieving his dream.
Starting in the summer of 2024, Fan has interned at the THINK lab at the University of Pennsylvania. According to the Penn Medicine Center for Immunotherapies, THINK stands for Therapeutic Innovation in NK Cells. The center works in immunology, which is a special interest of Fan’s.
The immune system is very, very complicated,” Fan said. “We do [research], and we still don’t understand all the interactions. We’re still trying to figure out how certain things in the system work, and so that’s something I’m really, really curious about figuring out.”
He has been interested in science since he was a kid.
“Since elementary school, my parents have signed me up for a bunch of science summer camps, learning about black holes, the universe, and space,” Fan said.
He discovered his interest in immunology specifically when he started learning about the Carl June Lab, also at the University of Pennsylvania, back in sixth grade. The lab specialized in CAR T-cell immunotherapy. Put simply, it is when a patient’s T-cells are genetically modified so that they can more effectively fight cancer.
“That concept was so fascinating to me, that we were able to take the cells out and modify the DNA to make them better at killing cancer, and I actually did my sixth grade Genius Hour project on it,” Fan said.
Along with Genius Hour, Fan has utilized other opportunities at Haven, including Science Olympiad, of which he is the captain. He also took a Field Career class last year.
“Field career replaces one of your classes, and you go during school hours to an internship,” Fan said.
Fan used this opportunity to intern at the THINK lab during school, continuing what he had done the summer before. After the school year, he continued the internship over the summer.
“I shadowed a mentor over there, and did a project of my own with some basic lab skills,” Fan said. “It was a project involving protein design. I designed new proteins and used different AI models to create the sequence and predict the structure and predict binding, and then I asked it to set up a pipeline to basically test the proteins I created.”
The reason Fan loves science so much is that he loves the thrill of discovering new things.
“There’s so much we already know about science,” Fan said. “We know we’ve made great technological leaps and leaps in knowledge for science, but there’s always something that we haven’t learned, something that hasn’t been researched, or we still don’t have the technology to find out. I love exploring that.”
