After earning her medical degree in Myanmar (formerly Burma,) Zin Mar Htun said she knew how to care for sick people \u2013 but didn\u2019t know how to conduct research that would find ways to prevent their disease. So she came to Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ to become a physician scientist \u2013 and is now onto her residency training in Chicago.<\/p>\n
Htun was one of 19 graduate students who presented their research at the May 8 Burnett School of Biomedical Science\u2019s 12th Annual Graduate Research Symposium. The Masters and Ph.D. candidates presented their thesis research on a breadth of subjects \u2013 from repairing ailing hearts with stem cells to understanding the perfect microbial environment for brewing beer.<\/p>\n
Htun\u2019s research examined whether patients with Crohn\u2019s disease \u2013 a debilitating inflammatory bowel disease \u2013 have a genetic pre-disposition to get the condition. She said gastroenterology has always fascinated her but she needed to come to the U.S. to achieve her dreams.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing from a Third World country, I didn\u2019t have experience with research,\u201d she said. \u201cI was good at diagnosing, but not at finding solutions. Research is about finding solutions to a problem, not just treating it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She heard about Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ from a friend and fellow medical school alumnae, Dr. Nway Lei, who is doing her internal medicine residency at the Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ College of Medicine\u2019s partnership program with the Osceola Regional and Orlando VA medical centers. \u201cEvery time we talked, it was all Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½, Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½, Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½,\u201d Htun said. \u201cI wanted to come to Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ to get the research experience I could not get in my country and to take me further in medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n
She arrived in 2015. She is defending her Master\u2019s thesis on May 15 and on June 19 begins her internal medicine residency at Louis A. Weiss Memorial Hospital in Chicago. After her three-year residency, the 27-year-old doctor hopes to do a fellowship to become a gastroenterologist.<\/p>\n
Her Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ research experience in right in line with that goal. Htun is working with Dr. Saleh Naser, professor of medicine and associate director of graduate studies at the Burnett School, whose lab is involved in a Phase III clinical trial to treat Crohn\u2019s patients with long-term antibiotics.\u00a0Naser believes the bacterium Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis<\/em>, known as MAP, causes Crohn\u2019s disease. Cows can carry the bacterium in their intestines and can spread it to milk and ground meat.<\/p>\n As part of the study, Naser and Htun are looking at whether patients who get Crohn\u2019s have a genetic predisposition that causes them to get the disease after being exposed to MAP. As part of the clinical trial, Naser\u2019s lab is receiving tissue and blood samples from Crohn\u2019s patients at more than 95 clinics worldwide. Htun\u2019s research found that almost 82 percent of patients who tested positive for MAP also had a specific gene mutation. If that connection can be verified, scientists hope to develop a treatment patients with the genetic mutation could take to prevent Crohn\u2019s.<\/p>\n Naser noted that his student\u00a0has received several presentation awards for her research and called her \u201ca true testament to our graduate Master\u2019s program.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cZinMar impresses me so much with her focused goals, hard work and unwavering determination,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After earning her medical degree in Myanmar (formerly Burma,) Zin Mar Htun said she knew how to care for sick people \u2013 but didn\u2019t know how to conduct research that would find ways to prevent their disease. So she came to Â鶹ӳ»´«Ã½ to become a physician scientist \u2013 and is now onto her residency training in Chicago. Htun was one…","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":77435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-twocol.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[5,12,17,23],"tags":[653,5660],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-77434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colleges","category-health","category-medicine","category-research","tag-burnett-school-of-biomedical-sciences","tag-saleh-naser"],"yoast_head":"\n