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MSTP student nets UNCF-Merck fellowship by Dick Peterson Public Relations This is the year Christopher Crosby's friends graduate from medical school. But not Christopher. Christopher Crosby They suffered together through long nights of intense study, packed basic science information into their resistant brains and looked ahead to a day when they would touch the lives of patients who needed them. “The first two years of medical school is when you make your closest friends,” the Medical Scientist Training Program student said. Those friends have completed their four years of medical school and will now scatter to begin their training as residents. Crosby stays for another four years of training—two more in research and then two as a clinician. “They go, and there are a few of us stragglers left behind,” he said. But for Crosby, the parting is sweetened by a 2001 United Negro College Fund-Merck Graduate Science Research Dissertation Fellowship for his 2001-2002 academic year.  At the advice of College of Graduate Studies dean Perry Halushka, M.D., Ph.D., Crosby applied for the fellowship which will pay his stipend and provide funds for equipment purchases and travel to scientific conferences.  The application was based on research that Crosby is conducting in the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy headed by Roger Markwald, Ph.D. Crosby is a Ph.D. student in the laboratory of Christopher Drake, Ph.D.  The research Crosby is conducting in Drake’s laboratory is the foundation of his Ph.D. dissertation entitled “The Role of Hepatocyte Growth Factor in Angiogenesis.” Crosby explained that understanding the development of blood vessels can lead to inhibiting them to block blood flow to a tumor, or stimulating their growth to treat cardiac ischemia.  From Abbeville, S.C., Crosby attended high school at the S.C. Governor's School for Science and Mathematics in Hartsville and did his undergraduate studies at Duke University. He chose MUSC “for the quality of the Medical Scientist Training Program and the charms of Charleston.” Crosby met his wife, Michelle, while they were both at Duke. She too is an MSTP student at MUSC. “I’ve always had a desire to be in the biomedical field. But it wasn’t until I was introduced to research at Duke that I had the opportunity to discover something new,” Crosby said. “It’s exciting. It’s not that every day in the lab produces a breakthrough, but every once in a while you are rewarded.” Crosby said he wants to work in an academic hospital “where I can see patients and have a research project as well.” Though it is difficult to balance clinical and research responsibilities, Crosby hopes that his M.D. and Ph.D. will allow him to operate in both arenas and be a liaison for either. “I want to be able to bring problems from the clinic to be solved in the basic science laboratory, as well as translate basic science discoveries into new and more effective treatments in the clinics,” Crosby said.