Student Research Year Highlight: Culbert

The Cleveland Clinic Lerner of College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University (CCLCM) is a five-year program dedicated to developing the next generation of physician investigators. During their first year, students are assigned dedicated physician and research advisors to help ensure they reach their educational goals. In their fourth year, students work with a mentor to develop a master’s-level thesis in basic science, translational medicine, clinical medicine or health systems. When the students graduate, they each receive an MD with Special Qualification in Biomedical Research from Case Western Reserve University.

The research in which students are involved is critical, timely and often results in presentations at national conferences and publication in scholarly journals. The example below briefly describes a student’s research project involving the use of predictive modeling to identify patients at highest risk for developing life-threatening infections after CAR T-cell therapy.

“During my research year, I participated in the Medical Research Scholars Program (MRSP) at the National Institutes of Health and worked in the Pediatric Oncology Branch under the mentorship of Nirali Shah, MD, MHSc. My project focused on using predictive modeling to identify which patients are at highest risk for developing life-threatening infections after CAR T-cell therapy. CAR T-cells are a powerful form of immunotherapy for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL), but they can also cause profound immunosuppression, making infections a major source of treatment-related morbidity and mortality."

“Our multicenter study included 350 patients treated at the National Cancer Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Seattle Children’s Hospital. We evaluated a recently developed risk score called ALL-HEMATOTOX (ALL-HT), originally designed to predict low blood counts after CAR T-cell therapy, to determine whether it could also predict severe infections. Using statistical models that account for multiple risk factors simultaneously, we found that older age, history of prior severe infection and higher ALL-HT score were independent predictors of developing a life-threatening infection within the first two months after treatment. Patients classified as high-risk by ALL-HT were significantly more likely to develop infections, with low platelet count before treatment emerging as the strongest driver of infection risk."

“These findings suggest that predictive models like ALL-HT can help clinicians identify vulnerable patients before therapy begins, enabling more targeted monitoring and prevention strategies to make CAR T-cell therapy safer for patients with B-ALL.”

-- August Culbert (’26)