Alumna Elana Simon '14 Helps Introduce President's Precision Medicine Initiative
Elana Simon '14 was the only other person at the lectern, along with President Obama, to introduce his Precision Medicine Initiative. As reported today (May 12, 2015) in US News and World Report online, Elana explained, “Because the research I did was a good example of the benefits of precision medicine and [I was] approaching research from such a specific, personalized [way] … they thought it would be appropriate for me to speak about it.”
Elana's research, connected to Dalton's Science Research Program at Rockefeller University, led her team to identify a genetic cause for cancer that she had and survived as a child. This approach to finding genetic causes for disease drew the President's attention when she was invited to, and featured at, the White House Science Fair last year. Elana was invited to join President Obama without knowing what she was going to be asked to do.