My career goal is to be an impactful physician-scientist with expertise in gastrointestinal malignancies conducting laboratory-based translational research that improves patient care. To this end, I earned an MD and PhD in the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Medical Scientist Training Program, while supported by an individual F30. I performed my dissertation research in the laboratory of Dr. Christine Eischen characterizing a novel oncogene, MTBP. I developed foundational technical skills in laboratory-based biochemical experimental methods, two-dimensional cell culture, and mouse models of lymphoma and breast cancer. From 2016 to 2018 I completed my general internal medicine residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. I served as the Hugh J. Morgan Chief Resident for the 2019-2020 academic year. I completed my medical oncology fellowship training, focusing on gastrointestinal malignancies, specifically colorectal cancer. As a member of Vanderbilt’s Harrison Society Physician Scientist Training Program, I trained as a post-doctoral research fellow in the laboratory of Dr. William Tansey studying WDR5. Interestingly at the end of graduate school, I collaborated with Dr. Tansey’s research group and provided pivotal experimental data in the discovery that WDR5 functions as a cofactor for the oncogenic transcription factor MYC. Dr. Tansey and his collaborator Dr. Stephen Fesik went on to develop small molecule inhibitors of WDR5 that prevent MYC from transcriptionally activating a subset of its target genes essential for ribosome formation. Their WDR5 inhibitors cause ribosome depletion and choke translation, a completely novel antineoplastic strategy. WDR5 inhibitors are being refined for early phase clinical trials through the National Cancer Institute’s Experimental Therapeutics Program (NExT)—work I have contributed to as a member of the Tansey laboratory. Additionally, through my collaboration with the Vanderbilt GI SPORE, I have identified CRC cell lines susceptible to WDR5 inhibitors and performed work with a novel mouse model to interrogate the role of the MYC-WDR5 interaction in murine colon cancer maintenance. Given the clinical promise of WDR5 inhibitors and the potential benefit of targeting other MYC cofactors, I continue to build upon this work and expand our understanding of MYC biology.