Summer Student Program alumnus returns to lead

Raheem Khadour, SSP ’23 was a pre-med sophomore at the College of the Atlantic when he first learned about research opportunities at The Jackson Laboratory. He had a growing interest in studying cardiovascular disease because of an abnormality in a very important heartbeat: his own.

At age 13, Khadour’s heart beat faster than normal, a condition known as tachycardia that is sometimes triggered by puberty and growth spurts. In his home country of Syria, a cardiologist assured him that his condition was not serious and offered reading materials to help him understand his condition. From that point on, Khadour was fascinated.

He came to JAX as an Academic Year Fellow in the laboratory of Nadia Rosenthal, Ph.D., FMedSci, FAAMS, where he began helping to validate a mouse model for heart failure. He was accepted to the Summer Student Program to continue his research full-time during the summer of 2023, and then stayed on for another academic year.

The second year of his fellowship brought a new research opportunity. The Rosenthal lab and the Serreze lab collaborated on a project to study the impact of immune checkpoint inhibitors — a type of cancer immunotherapy — on damage to the heart (myocarditis) and skeletal muscle (myositis). Khadour was recruited for the echocardiography skills he honed during his first year at the Laboratory. His work helped lead the team to a cover-story publication in the Journal of Immunology.

Inspired by the opportunity to mentor others interested in biomedical research, Raheem served as a resident assistant for the 2024 Summer Student Program because he appreciated being around those who shared his curiosity and enthusiasm for knowledge.

“I found people like me. In the summer program, we share our curiosity and our excitement for research. We get together at the end of the day around the dinner table and air frustrations about things that didn’t go well in the lab. I wanted to give others the opportunity to support one another in that way.”

He next has his eye on an M.D./Ph.D. program that will allow him to receive training in both research and medicine, followed by medical school. His ultimate dream is to become a heart surgeon.

“I hope that one day I can do for someone else what my cardiologist did for me, and help put patients at ease,” he said. “It feels like such a rewarding path to follow in life, and a chance to do something good in the world.”

This article is part of JAX’s 2024 digital impact report, an annual celebration of the power of philanthropy in accelerating our mission to improve the future of human health.