Fighting Setbacks in the Pursuit of Knowledge

“I started noticing that I felt less anxious once I saw everything put together and all my tasks distributed on different days of the week,” said Baslyk.

As a psychology major, Baslyk also realized she might have a promising topic for a research project. Together with her professors, Baslyk put together a study and recruited dozens of participants. Her paper, “The Effect of Visual Planning on Anxiety,” concluded that being able to visualize tasks whether through journals, planners, or cue cards, was highly effective in combatting anxiety.

Baslyk was one of several Touro students whose research won honors this year at Touro University’s annual school-wide research day on May 8. Titled “Resilience and Persistence,” the event, held in the school’s flagship Times Square Cross River Campus, brought a large crowd of students and faculty members to celebrate Touro University’s ever-expanding research footprint, now stretching across five states.

Basilyk’s story was echoed in both keynote presentations. Speaker Lorah Perlee, PhD, VP of Strategic Program Direction and Hematology and Global Program Head in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, spoke of how her team fought setbacks as they developed Veopoz, the first FDA-approved drug to treat CHAPLE disease, a rare, little-understood fatal genetic condition that affects the immune system. There are believed to be only 100 people who suffer from the disease. (At one point, their study enrolled ten people with the disease, which, Dr. Perlee noted, accounted for 10 percent of the entire population.)

“We are committed to curing diseases, regardless of the size of the population,” she said. “We are driven to advance science and medicine and continue to pursue knowledge. That is in our DNA at Regeneron.”

Following Dr. Perlee’s speech, Dr. Aurelio Lorico, PhD, MD, a professor of pathology at Touro University Nevada delivered his own story of persistence in the face of failure, which led to his receiving Touro University Nevada’s first National Institute of Health grant.

Both presentations were followed by a lengthy Q and A.

The day was also a clarion call for the importance of objective and evidence-driven research that is a hallmark of research at Touro University.

Salomon Amar, DDS, PhD, Touro’s Senior Vice President for Research Affairs, noted that the event had received 170 abstracts, of which 102 were selected to be posted online.

“We are here today to celebrate advances across the Touro universe,” explained Dr. Amar. “We are strongest when we work in tandem towards our goals.”

Touro President Alan Kadish, MD, connected the theme of the day to Touro’s larger mission, noting the long-term detrimental effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, campus unrest, and worsening anti-Semitism in the United States. “It has been a tough few years,” admitted Dr. Kadish. “Resilience and persistence have categorized Touro throughout its 50+ years. Although we are not a faith-based institution, we are an institution of Jewish tradition; something that has categorized the Jewish tradition for millennia is a commitment to the advancement of knowledge despite what is going on around us.”

Zvi Loewy, PhD, Associate Dean of Research at Touro College of Pharmacy, presented awards for best student-research presentations across four categories: Applied Clinical and Translational Research; Basic Sciences and Natural Sciences; Public Health, Epidemiology and Health Sciences; and Social, Behavioral, Educational Sciences & Humanities.

Below are the winners:

Applied, Clinical & Translational Research: “#HormonalBirthControl: Birth Control Talk on TikTok”—Madelaine McElrath, New York Medical College

Basic Sciences and Natural Sciences: “All-trans retinoic Acid (ATRA) Reduces Carcinogenicity of Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer Through Modulation of Differentiation Gene Driver HOXD4”—Kaci Kopec, New York Medical College

Public Health, Epidemiology and Health Sciences: “Changes in School-Age Children’s Wellbeing and School-Related Needs Post-Covid-19 Pandemic” —Rachel Spronz, New York Medical College

Social, Behavioral, Educational Sciences and Humanities: “The Effect of Visual Planning on Anxiety”—Kathryn Baslyk, New York School of Career and Applied Studies

Rumal Marji, a future member of Touro College of Pharmacy’s class of 2028, said that Touro’s school-wide research day offered her a different view of the school. “I think it just showed me how much research the university is conducting,” said Marji.

TouroCOM Montana student Helan Paulose, whose research examined the effects of protein Superoxide Dismutase 1 on ALS patients, won first prize in her school’s Research Day. She received a second-place prize at the university-wide competition. “It was really amazing for us,” said Paulose who together with her fellow co-researchers led a breakout room session. “We knew we did some solid research, but to be recognized throughout the whole university system was quite an honor.”

Kaci Kopec, a fourth year PhD student in microbiology at New York Medical College was surprised by the scale of research inside the university system. “We rarely are able to see what other people are doing in our other schools, but days like Research Day enable us to learn from each other and collaborate,” she said.