Empowering Future Innovators: Dr. Stephanie Wong and the Next Generation of Clinician-Scientists

USC’s clinician-scientist training program (CSTP) residency track gives recent medical school graduates 2 years to engage in cutting-edge research opportunities supported by the close mentorship of USC faculty. Dr. Stephanie Wong (MD), who is currently a PGY1 resident, says that she was always interested in science and medicine, even as a little kid.

Prior to joining USC’s CSTP, she graduated from Caltech with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, spending several years working with Dr. David Baltimore (PhD) on a new method of cancer neoantigen discovery. (Cancer neoantigens are proteins that form in cancer cells due to the mutations in their DNA, and recent advances in neoantigen research have been essential to creating tumor immunotherapies, such as cancer vaccines, adoptive cell therapy, and antibody-based therapies.) As Wong was attending medical school at the California University of Science and Medicine, she heard about USC’s CSTP while on rotation as a sub-I during her fourth year, and she realized that the program would offer her the perfect opportunity to develop her research skills prior to her PGY1 year (i.e. the first year of clinical residency). As she put it, “USC is unmatched in its clinical and research strength. I know I will come out of this program an excellent surgeon and scientist. It was important to me to have dedicated time for research prior to PGY1 year. I had the opportunity to really focus on science, which I could not have done during clinical training.”

In case one is unfamiliar with the term “clinician-scientist,” clinicians are generally focused on seeing and attending to patients whereas scientists often spend their time doing research in the lab and may not be attuned to how their research could be incorporated into clinical settings. A clinician-scientist, however, is able to witness the needs of patients in the clinical setting and then incorporate those observations into their research, bridging the divide. Several of the objectives of USC’s CSTP are for participants to gain experience in working with cutting-edge experimental techniques, to develop close mentoring relationships with published research faculty, and to gain experience in writing scientific papers and grants. “I think clinician-scientists naturally ponder the how and why of problems encountered in clinical practice,” Wong says. “In the current era of personalized medicine in cancer treatment, we are always trying to figure out different ways to learn more about the biological mechanisms behind disease progression and recurrence and how we can target those to help patients.”

Wong works with the Lin Lab, which, according to its website, “aims to develop faithful in vivo and in vitro models to characterize upper aerodigestive cancer for better understanding of its biology as well as its vulnerability.” Upper aerodigestive cancers, including head and neck and esophageal cancers, are among the most lethal malignancies in the world, and over the years, the Lin Lab has gathered valuable research experience and data for upper aerodigestive cancer study–they were among the first in the world to demonstrate the genomic landscape of esophageal cancer, to delineate the clonal evolution of this cancer, to identify epigenomic deregulation for this malignancy, and to develop novel mathematical methods and computational pipelines for genomic analyses. ​​More specifically, Wong has been involved in research focused on the genetic changes occurring in the progression from oral leukoplakia (white patches) to oral cavity cancer and how these can be targeted to prevent progression. Her goal moving forward is to stay involved in research and develop more expertise in cancer genetics.

Wong describes a smooth transition into USC’s first-year residency program: “Getting to know the current residents over the first two years has made the transition easy and fun. The clinical time in the first two years was also extremely valuable to my learning and made the transition less daunting. The most difficult part has been trying to balance ongoing research projects with clinical duties.” Her favorite aspect of the program (and also what she considers the most surprising) has been the freedom to explore and pursue her various interests, receiving support from the program even through trial and error. She notes that the most challenging part of the program is, of course, the many trials and many errors that inevitably come with scientific research.

Wong is thrilled to delve further into her research as she begins her career in otolaryngology, which she explains has “the best people and awesome surgeries! It felt like a perfect fit to combine my passion for cancer research and surgery, and I am excited for the opportunity to advance the field both in the lab and in the clinic.” When asked to imagine her career 10 years from now, Wong says that she wants to be helping cancer patients and teaching/mentoring future head and neck clinician-scientists. Her advice to current and future research residents? “The research time is really valuable and you’ll never get an opportunity like it again, so make the most of it. Stay connected with the current residents as much as possible.”