Master of Biology Medical Sciences Program
One day, when he was only six years old, Precious Imhansi Jacob, who goes by PTOD, was met with an experience that would inspire his future. There were protestors outside on a stormy night in Nigeria, and one was hit by a car. Sitting in the backseat, PTOD was able to watch his mom, who was a nurse, spring into action.
“She was able to bring the person in the backseat really quickly because she had to get them to the hospital and I had to hold the person’s bloody head with gauze,” he said. “ I saw the blood on my hands and was like “wow”. The person ended up being okay at the end of the day.”
Despite his mother’s unfortunate passing in 2016, she still remains the main inspiration for PTOD today. Seeing firsthand the power of saving a life made him want to pursue a future in the medical field.
PTOD started off on the Clarkston Perimeter campus as a biology major before transferring to the Atlanta campus to finish his undergraduate degree. Now 23 years old, he is in his second year of his master’s program in Medical Sciences, a biology concentration.
According to Georgia State’s graduate degree program website, the Medical sciences program is “designed to help students be better prepared to apply to medical school”. Students in this program have a 90% acceptance rate into medical school.
In his undergraduate years, he was the vice-president of Clarkston’s Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society and taught as a TA. He also received several awards for his work in chemistry and math. One of the projects he earned an award for was his work with water.
“At the perimeter campus, I did some water analysis research. [It was] like field research, where we took some water samples from different places around the metropolitan area and we tested for nitrates, sulfates, phosphates, and the water ion levels,” PTOD said.
He got third-place for that project.
In his last two years as a graduate student, PTOD has been branching out and trying new things such as acting and modeling. His primary focus however is the cancer research that he’s doing with a team in the Petit Science Center.
“We try to utilize a certain organelle in the cells to distinguish how diseased or prognosed the patient is,” PTOD said. “We look at certain kinds of markers and protein level expressions of this kind of organelle that characterizes its prevalence.”
PTOD noted that the work that he’s currently doing hasn’t been done before. He and his team also recently published a paper titled “Hypoxia-Induced Centrosome Amplification Underlies Aggressive Disease Course in HPV-Negative Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinomas”. The paper is about how he’s using centrosomes, an organelle in all cells, and its level of amplification to help with therapeutic decision making for HPV-negative oral cancer patients and can serve as a therapeutic target.
After he completes his master’s program, PTOD plans on taking six months to prepare for the MCAT before applying to M.D. Ph.D. programs. He’s not certain what exactly he wants to do career-wise quite yet, as he has interests in research and working with hospitals.
“I want to do surgery, I’m sure exactly what yet, but I know I want to do surgery,” PTOD said. “I want to be able to put a footing in the industry and push forward the biology community.”
Whatever his future may hold, he wants to be a part of research in the biology field and help it continue to move it forward. He’s currently considering becoming a clinical oncologist, which would suit many of his interests.
One of his favorite aspects of the biology department is the professors.
“They’ve been really, really good teachers in regard to getting the information to the students in a way that it’s meaningful,” PTOD said.
PTOD feels as though Georgia State has prepared him well so far for his career.
“[Georgia State has] prepared me for a plethora of possible biology-related jobs through the list of talkers from which they invite different schools and companies to bring awareness about these opportunities via seminar classes I took,” he said. “Faculty members such as Dr. Ulrich, Dr. Eilertson, Dr. Aneja, and Dr. Mittal have helped me a lot especially in giving me advice and furthering my studies thus far as a master's student, and hopefully as a future medical doctor.”
His tip to future biology students is to “always ask questions” and “make sure that you try to make the best of the time you have with the professor.”