Home » Vol 3.3
Category Archives: Vol 3.3
From Classroom To Lab: My Work With T Cell Therapy
By Lilly Drohan, VI Form
From Classroom To Lab: My Work With T Cell Therapy
This summer, I traveled to Seattle, Washington to work in the Ben Towne Center for Childhood Cancer Research at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute. My biology teacher presented me with the opportunity, and I immediately got my hands on it. Studying cancer at the microbiological level in Advanced Biology my junior year really challenged me and stimulated my curiosity, but what I experienced during August turned my attraction into almost an obsession. Dr. Michael Jensen, the director of the lab, takes an approach to pediatric cancer therapy that not many take: using the body’s own immune system to fight off the cancer. Dr. Jensen and his team reprogram immune cells called T cells using virus technology to give the cells specific properties that help them proliferate and target specific molecules expressed on cancer cells. This form of therapy is incredibly innovative and creative, and it was so captivating to be at the forefront of the further development of the treatment for just a brief month.
(more…)
The Founding Fathers’ Intent and the Formation of the Constitution
By Joey Lyons, VI Form
The Founding Fathers’ Intent and the Formation of the Constitution
Throughout the country’s history, Americans have romanticized the nation-building work of the Founding Fathers. Since egalitarianism, liberty and democracy are central to the American mythos, Americans have often associated those ideals with the country’s founders. In making this association, Americans neglect the private interactions between the founders and, instead, focus on their public rhetoric. In public documents, most of the Founding Fathers expressed a desire to establish an inclusive democracy with majority rule. However, the founders, all of whom were in the economic elite, communicated different beliefs amongst themselves. Privately, the Founding Fathers wrote about their concerns over the possibility of oppressive majority rule by common people. As wealthy landowners, events, like the Rhode Island Currency Crisis and Shay’s Rebellion (both in 1786), (more…)
To Go Through Hell and Resurface
By Isabella Cruz-Nascimento, V Form
To Go Through Hell and Resurface
Crazy, insane, bipolar, OCD–all terms that have worked their way into colloquial language. Most people use them to describe themselves; “Oh my God, I am so OCD, I can’t handle messy rooms” is a sentence that could be heard regularly among teenagers. However, swap in a teen that genuinely displays compulsive behavior and the declarations turn into murmurs of, “What’s wrong with her?” “She needs to calm down,” “They need to medicate her already”. Mental illness is inconsequential and intriguing, until one sees its effects in person. In a community like St. Mark’s, being diagnosed with a mental illness can be onerous, not only because of the rigorous environment, but also because of the burden of the connotations that come with having a diagnosis. In an environment that demands perfection, I sometimes feel branded as incapable of success because of my diagnosis. For the majority of the past two years I have kept my dishonorable secret closely guarded. I refuse to do that now. (more…)
En français: Madagascar & Bruxelles, Belgique
The following descriptions are written by French 2 students who engaged in a
project making brochures that detailed different Francophone countries.Festina Lente: Reflections on Teaching and Gardening
By Heather Harwood, Classics Faculty
Festina Lente: Reflections on Teaching and Gardening
This past spring and summer, I was once again actively involved in the St. Mark’s Community Garden Project. With the help of five students last spring and with the committed labor of several St. Mark’s faculty during the summer, the garden continued to expand and flourish into its fourth season. It provided all of us who participated with an abundance of delicious and nutritious food and was a quiet, reflective refuge where I could escape any given sunny morning to harvest my thoughts about the past school year and think about the upcoming one. (more…)
Like a Rock Star
By Charlie Sellers, Head of the Modern Languages Department
Like a Rock Star
I had a very busy summer vacation. It was also a phenomenal summer full of adventure and self-
discovery. A day after finishing my end of the year duties at St. Mark’s –advisee letters, grades, comments, and faculty meetings– I left for China with 10 St. Markers and our former Chinese teacher, Showjean Wu. After two weeks in Beijing at our partner school, I was back in the States. My wife and I were moving from the house across from the thirds’ soccer field to a bigger house at the end of the thirds’ soccer field, and I needed to pack. My wife, Michaela, was busy finishing up classes and end of the year events –she teaches 5th grade at a public school in Sharon, Massachusetts– and we had another big adventure planned for the day after she finished classes. We were about to embark on an 800-kilometer (about 500-miles, a little longer than the distance from (more…)
LEO 