Melanie Perez

Melanie Perez

Florida International University
Miami, Florida

What are your long-term career goals?  

I intend to earn an MD/PhD in cancer biology to build a career as a physician-scientist working in the field of cancer genetics. My long-term goal is to work as a principal investigator in a lab at an academic medical center. I plan to conduct research on understanding unresolved disease mechanisms for various cancers by targeting common oncogenes/tumor suppressors and how they are regulated by cellular factors to develop new or improve methods of drug treatment that can be translated to patients in a clinical setting. By being involved in translational     medicine, I ultimately hope to give back to my community.