In this mini-series, we explore different health professions to better understand the variety of team members involved in patient care. For this episode, we spoke with Anh Phu about his journey to becoming a physician-scientist.
Anh Phu is an MD-PhD student at the Yale School of Medicine. He was born in Vietnam and moved to San Francisco, CA at 11. He attended City College of San Francisco and transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his Bachelor of Arts with/ Honors in Molecular & Cell Biology in 2019. Anh then worked as a research assistant at UCSF and the San Francisco VA Center studying the roles of macrophages in cardiometabolic diseases. He has published three first-author articles in prestigious scientific journals that further contribute to understanding the metabolic reprogramming of macrophages to regulate chronic inflammation and atherosclerosis. Anh also co-authored numerous publications that investigated the functional properties of extracellular vesicles in atherosclerosis, obesity, diabetes, sepsis, and cancer. He is now a 3rd year student and just recently joined the Department of Immunobiology at Yale to begin his PhD work. His scientific interest focuses on understanding the effect of aging on the immune system and cardiovascular diseases. This also translates to his clinical interest, which he aspires to pursue a career in cardiovascular medicine. As an immigrant himself, Anh is also passionate about immigrant health. He volunteers at the HAVEN Free Clinic, where he helps provide primary care services to immigrant patients in New Haven.