Biology grad bridges lab and patient care

Biology graduate Ramone Williams, winner of the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, says watching the dissection of a lizard in a high school science class sparked her interest in medicine. During her sophomore year at Emory, the Jamaica native began doing biomedical research on triple negative breast cancer at the Winship Cancer Institute.

She learned that triple-negative breast cancer spreads quickly and is more often fatal. “Breast cancer rates in general are higher in white women, but for this particular cancer it’s higher in African-American women,” Williams says. “I felt a personal connection with the people who were suffering behind the disease that I was researching.in the lab.”

Williams will use the scholarship to pursue a masters in philosophy and translational medicine at Cambridge University. “Translational medicine aims to bridge the gap between research in the lab and the implementation of those innovations in the clinic,” she explains.

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