Christina (Christy) Pickering, a second year PhD student at the Institute for Computational Medicine, has been accepted to the Medical Scientist Training Program, a combined MD-PhD program at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Christy is among a select group of students who were accepted to the highly competitive program which receives an average of 514 secondary applications annually for an average class size of 10 students.

Pickering’s path leading to the combined MD-PhD program is unique. She initially entered the PhD program in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University in the fall of 2016, drawn to the computational research opportunities that were available, and landed in the ICM lab of Feilim Mac Gabhann, associate professor in the department of biomedical engineering, where her research focuses on understanding cell signaling in metastatic cancer.

While taking an anatomy course through the BME PhD program at the School of Medicine, Pickering developed an interest in working directly with patients and realized that earning an MD in addition to a PhD is the best way to reach her interdisciplinary career goals.

After completing the MD-PhD program, Pickering aspires to practice oncology at a major academic hospital and run a lab doing computational medicine research. She is incredibly excited about starting medical school in the fall and being a part of the MD/PhD program at Hopkins.