AMA Research Challenge winning posters

View posters from past winners and finalists in the AMA Research Challenge, the largest national, multi-specialty medical research conference for medical students and residents. Find out how to increase your chances of being a future winner.

2023 Research Challenge winner: Jesse Kirkpatrick

Jesse Kirkpatrick is a third-year medical student at Harvard Medical School. His research looked at developing an early diagnostic test for cholangiocarcinoma, a rare cancer.

What was the winning research?

Kirkpatrick's research—“Detection of cholangiocarcinoma with protease activity probes” (PDF, members only)—beat out four other finalists and nearly 1,100 other entries from medical students, resident physicians and fellows, and international medical graduates. The five-year survival rate for cholangiocarcinoma is around 10%, putting it on par with pancreatic cancer as one of the deadliest forms of cancer. The lack of early detection methods for the disease is a major reason for cholangiocarcinoma’s high fatality rate. Kirkpatrick's work looks at a diagnostic that can distinguish cancer from benign diseases. In his work, he leveraged a new class of diagnostic probes called activatable zymography probes, or AZPs, to detect cancer associated proteases.