SIU Medical Student Receives National Fellowship

Ryan Gobble, a third-year medical student at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, has been awarded an Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA) Student Research Fellowship for 2004. He is one of approximately 40 recipients nationally who is receiving the $3,000 award and the tenth consecutive AOA national fellowship winner at SIU.

The purpose of the fellowship is to promote research among medical students. The award supports Gobble's project, which is looking at why the expression of a protein is severely suppressed in obstetrical complications like pre-eclampsia, one of the leading causes of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality.

Gobble is doing his research under the supervision of Donald S. Torry, Ph.D., associate professor of medical microbiology and immunology at SIU. Gobble is examining the genetic mechanisms that regulate the expression of placenta growth factor in trophoblast cells of the human placenta.

Gobble is the son of Mike and Sandy Gobble of Springfield. He has a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2001).

AOA is the only national medical honor society in the world. It recognizes and works to perpetuate excellence in the medical professions by promoting scholarship and research and by encouraging high standards of character and conduct among medical students and graduates.

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