Third Grade Learns about the Brain from Dr. Lee McDaniel

The Indian Creek School Class of 2029 enjoyed a wonderful visit from guest speaker (and Davey's uncle), Dr. Lee McDaniel on Wednesday, May 27, during their synchronous class meeting. Dr. McDaniel is a scholar in the field of genetic diseases in children. He has specialized in studies of brain cancer, and shared his extensive knowledge about the brain with the students to enhance their studies of the Human Body.
 
During his presentation to the third grade students, Dr. McDaniel shared his path to becoming a doctor.  In high school, he fell in love with computing and programming, and pursued his bachelors and masters' degrees in technology concurrently at Johns Hopkins University.  The students enjoyed hearing about one particular project he worked on at Hopkins - He tried to program a way for Legos to build a self-perpetuating moon base! After college, Dr. McDaniel worked at the National Institutes of Health helping scientists and doctors build programs and databases to track genes and the proteins they make to help figure out how genes can make people sick. He got so interested in medicine he decided to go back to school to be a doctor, and worked at the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia while going to medical school. His focus was in brain cancers and other diseases in kids, and how to help them using genetics. He has written many papers and made many presentations on the topic, and even won a St. Baldrick's grant for his work! He went to medical school at Georgetown and worked afterwards at Duke University doing research on kids and genetic diseases. His next project will have him using computers and genetics to help doctors at the Children's Hosipital of Philadelphia better understand how to diagnose and treat rare diseases in kids.
 
Dr. McDaniel gave the students an in-depth overview of the human brain and all of it's functions.  He even showed the students an MRI image of his own brain. Thank you Dr. McDaniel for a wonderful visit!
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Indian Creek school is a co-educational, college preparatory independent school, located in Crownsville, Maryland.  Students in Pre-K3 through grade 12 receive a vibrant educational experience based on excellent academics steeped in strong student-teacher connections.