Welcome to the Homepage of the Only Perpetually Happy person at MIT.

Oleg E. Drozhinin

ACADEMICS

Oleg is now a Medical School student at Yale School of Medicine. I am located about 130 miles southwest from my beloved MIT Campus. Spening most of the time studying does not leave me a lot of time to update this page. But I shall try. I'm a Webmaster at the Medical campus and maintain the pages of Yaxis, Medical School Student community page. You can take a look at our class's schedule that I have put up recently.

I have graduated. I have been a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the best school here in Cambridge. I majored in Biology. As a proud techie, I am interested in Computer Science, and technology flows through my veins. But even at MIT, science isn't everything. Some of my many academic interests include history (American history is is my concentration), languages, and classic literature.

I had opportunities to study in several institutions and I am patriotic about every school I attend. I went to Sheepshead Bay High School in Brooklyn, New York City(a long time ago what it seems). During High School I took science courses at the Kingsborough Community College in the College Now program. I was also fortunate to be admitted into the Science Honors Program(SHP) at Columbia University which is headed by Professor Alan Blaer (a really nice guy).

This fall I'm going to attend Yale University School of Medicine.

RESEARCH

Textbooks do not tell you everything. Even great teachers do not know everything. Research is where you get(hopefully) the answers no one knows. Since the time I attended the HHMI-NSF Young Scholars Program headed by Professors William Fleischman and Russell Gardner at Villanova University I became a proponent of such programs. It is a great way to study an area of science in much great detail than is possible in a classroom.

My interest in cardiology developed while I participated in the Fellowship program at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington, Connecticut. I worked in the Pharmacology Department investigating muscarinic agonists and receptors in isolated guinea pig ventricular myocytes(heart muscle cells). As it turned out, Acetycholine has a very interesting effect on the contracture of the heart cells.

They say that biology people use Macintosh computers because they can not figure out how to use DOS or UNIX. Well, they wrong! Having programmed for the past ten years, I could not help it not to find a technically oriented research project which involved XWindows Programming. I worked at International Consortium on Medical Imaging Technology (ICMIT), investigating actin dynamics in vascular endothelium by developing methodology to create 3-D structures from EM stereo images.

Green Fluorescent Protein is a very useful way to study gene expression. In the Biotechnology III Course (7.17), taught Professors Peter Sorger and Paul Matsudaira, my lab partner, Mike Demassa, and I studied the expression of the Mitotic Arrest Deficient Gene (MAD2). We fused MAD2 N- and C-terminally and studied the expression of the fusion gene in mammalian cells. Neat, eh?

Working in the Department of Pathology, at the Washington University Medical School in Saint Louis opened my eyes to the world of Glycosylation. I worked in the Laboratory of Dr. Jacques U. Baenziger whose lab studies Human Hormones :) :) :). My project focused on human Chorionic Gonadotropin(yes, that hormone that is used to test for pregnancies). hCG has a recognition sequence that can be used for drug targetting and gene therapy.

LIFE besides sleep and Study.

There's much more to life than textbooks. That's right! The to life is . And for that sweet evil one needs an antidote -- Heavyweight Varsity Crew. Pursuit for academic knowledge is most fun when combined with the search for one's anaerobic threshold. Have you ever lost 1200 calories in one hour? Would you like to? Coach Gordon Hamilton will tell you that it is very very fun. As much as early Saturday morning "King of the Hill" captain's practice. Have you experienced the Ergometer? It's a simple non-technical apparatus. If you want to know what it is, Just ask Stu Schmill, our new lightweight varsity coach, and he'll give you a big smile and tell you not to eat before erging. You should listen to Stu. I still can't decide if Crew or tennis is the best. However, both are on the top of my list, ahead of volleyball, football, and biking. I think that American football is wussie; the real football is called soccer in .

If you're a frosh, sophomore, or Junior and you need help in picking classes, deciding on a career, or finding a summer Biology Research Job, you shouldn't hesitate asking me. I am an Associate Advisor, and I will find time to help you with such information. Although you shouldn't count on unlimited love and care that I give to my babies(associate advisees), but I can tell you which classes are good and which... will require you to postpone sleep till next year. Also, being PreMed (I'd like to become a Pediatric Cardiologist someday), I can tell you about the requirements or help pick a PreMedical Advisor at MIT. My PreMed Advisor is great, although since he is busy with research and teaching, he can only have a few advisees.

I joined MedLinks not because I would get to pick food for the dorm study breaks. I really don't think that most students eat enough healthy food in college. Although many times students have limited time and are forced to buy something fast, there are many simple recipies that can be easily prepared. If you have any health and stress concerns, Medlinks can refer you to Medical Department staff or give you phone numbers for Medical Services as well as Deans in the Student Affairs Office who will help you with any other problems.

At The Tech we get the News First! Our Oldest and Largest Campus Newspaper is not only student run, it annihilates the competition. Our newsroom has a unique atmosphere; there is always something happening on campus. And It's not just a Police Car on the Big Dome.

FRIENDS

Miscellanea

This page was created by Oleg E. Drozhinin. Copyright, 1996. Last update Nov 8th, 1996.
Questions, comments about my page? Email me to olegmanREMOVE@mit.edu, olegmanREMOVE@the-tech.mit.edu,
olegmanREMOVE@pathbox.wustl.edu, or simply click on the mailbox. You could zephyr me, if I'm online.

Since 11/22//1996