Aditya Mohan

Aditya Mohan is a sophomore student at Johns Hopkins University and youth leader in STEM originally from Ottawa, Ontario. Aditya has always been keenly interested in science and the potential it holds to make a difference in the world. Over the years, Aditya has competed and has been awarded in numerous scientific competitions with his work on biofuels, HIV, and cancer research. 

 

Aditya first got experience in the laboratory research environment at the age of 14 when he set to design new procedures to optimize the production of algal biofuels to lower associated costs. Soon after, Aditya began working at a research lab and studying the cellular interactions found in chronic diseases such as HIV. He began to research molecular immunology and developed a novel HIV treatment to stimulate the production of anti-viral CD8+ T Cells. This project won many national and regional award including the prestigious Canadian Manning Innovation Award. 

 

From this platform, Aditya was able to discover his greatest academic interest: cancer research. Aditya has leveraged his experience in virology to design cancer treatments ranging from oncolytic virology to tumor immunology. Aditya’s projects in oncolytic virology have involved bioengineering the common cold adenovirus virus to selectively identify and kill cancer cells. This project has earned him many international and national accolades including the 1st place award at the International Science and Engineering Fair and being named as the National BioGENEius of Canada. Since then, Aditya has used viruses as a gene delivery platform to create new immunotherapy designs. Aditya has worked with multiple world experts in the field of cancer immunotherapy on projects ranging from check-point inhibitors (recently published in Nature) and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell technology to arm the immune system to recognize and kill cancer cells. 

 

Aditya has used this research experience to develop a passion for medical sciences. Aditya is now is now a pre-med student majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Public Health Studies and Johns Hopkins and working at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Aside from research, Aditya also pursues a wide array of extracurricular activities. Aditya has competed in and won multiple national competitions for the visual arts and creative writing, and is an avid basketball player. Aditya also leads an initiative called Project Pulse, the largest health care conference in Ottawa, which aims to provide a bridge between professionals and aspiring medical students. 

 

"At the end of the day, every pursuit of excellence both begins and ends with a passion,” says Mohan.