I could hear my fellow Bio 70 members bustling outside my room at 7am. Even without any exchange of morning greetings, I could feel the tension that emanated from those of us who were scheduled to give their presentations today. Today was the day for which we prepared our research proposals over the course of 10 weeks at Dartmouth. Today was the day for our efforts to finally be appreciated by the faculty and scholars at the Aravind Medical Research Foundation.

After a hearty, Indian breakfast, we headed over to the Aravind Eye Care System. In the conference room, we were greeted with rows of tables and chairs, an official-looking podium, and a nicely covered moderator and expert desk.

After we got our name tags and settled into one of the many available seats, we waited for the Aravind faculty and scholars to arrive. We introduced ourselves to whoever came over to join us at the tables and held engaging conversations until Professor K. Dharmalingam drew everyone’s attention and gave his introduction.

Soon thereafter, our first set of presentations began.

Jalen and Maya set the bar very high as the front runners and presented their projects on Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON). Jalen’s talk focused on RTA 408 as a potential treatment for LHON and Maya’s presentation concentrated on sex-bias in LHON.

Up next, Kristen followed up with her clear and confident talk on using Ov-RAL2 as a novel onchocerciasis vaccine.

After a quick but sweet (literally) 20 minute coffee break,

Victoria gave her well-prepared presentation on a potential plant-based novel macrofilaricidal treatment of onchocerciasis.

Not losing momentum, Tammy successfully delivered her presentation on the use of SU5402 growth factor receptor inhibitor as a treatment option to prevent steroid-induced cataracts. Although cataract was a topic with which essentially all the Aravind audience members were familiar because of its prevalence in India, Tammy was indomitable.

Next, Emma gave her smooth, “honorary-phD-worthy” talk about the role of folate in sporadic retinoblastoma cases.

And Caroline with her eloquent speaking abilities and professional demeanor talked about spleen tyrosine kinase inhibitors as prophylactic treatment in heritable retinoblastoma cases.

And just like that, the first part of our presentations came to an end.

After a quick lunch back at the Inspiration Hotel, we went back to the Aravind Eye Care System to hear about the research that the Aravind scholars were doing in a poster presentation session.

From their unwavering eye contacts and constant confirmation questions, we could feel their passion towards their research projects and their desire to share their results with us. We all appreciated and enjoyed this enlightening interaction with the Aravind scholars.

-Christine Park