PHILADELPHIA, Penn. -- Caroline Sokol, a native of Marlton, New Jersey, has been chosen to receive the Lupus Foundation of Philadelphia's Goldie Simon Preceptorship Award.
Established in honor of one of the founders of the Lupus Foundation of Philadelphia, the award is designed to introduce college and medical students to clinical and basic science problems pertaining to systemic lupus erythematosus. The Foundation's hope is to attract future scientific investigators to the study of lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease that, for unknown reasons, causes the immune system to attack the body's own tissues.
Ms. Sokol currently works as a research assistant in Dr. Jan Erikson's laboratory in The Wistar Institute's Tumor Immunology Program. Her research project involves the localization of autoreactive B-cells, which are white blood cells that produce antibodies in immune responses. Working in collaboration with other scientists from Dr. Erikson's laboratory, she has submitted two manuscripts for publication in scientific journals and is preparing one more for submission.
Ms. Sokol is a 1997 honors graduate of Cherokee High School in Marlton. Prior to her senior year, she was one of only 90 high school students chosen to attend the New Jersey Governor's School in the Sciences at Drew University in Madison. With a strong interest in the immune system, Ms. Sokol hopes to earn a joint M.D./Ph.D., enabling her to conduct clinical research. She is currently a sophomore majoring in biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania.
The Wistar Institute, established in 1892, was the first independent medical research facility in the country. For more than 100 years, Wistar scientists have been making history and improving world health through their development of vaccines for diseases that include rabies, German measles, infantile gastroenteritis (rotavirus), and cytomegalovirus; discovery of molecules like interleukin-12, which are helping the immune system fight bacteria, parasites, viruses and cancer; and location of genes that contribute to the development of diseases like breast, lung and prostate cancer. Wistar is a National Cancer Institute Cancer Center.