The University of Illinois Cancer Center has awarded its 2024 Trainee Travel Awards to undergraduate student Sanjay Ganesh, Postdoctoral Research Associate Sai Komakula, PhD, and Hematology and Oncology Postdoctoral Fellow Ahmad Nassar, MD.
Each will receive $500 to offset the cost of travel and registration to present their cancer-related work at conferences, which are valuable opportunities for young scientists to share their work, as well as chances to network with other scientists.
More About the Awardees
- Ganesh is an undergraduate student in his third year majoring in Biology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and minoring in Computer Science in the College of Engineering. He is also a Pre-Med student in the Guaranteed Professional Program Admission (GPPA) Medical Scholars Program and will be matriculating at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Chicago next year. He will present his abstract, “Predicting Malignant Transformation of Choroidal Nevi Using Machine Learning,” at the 2024 American Academy of Ophthalmology Annual Meeting iin Chicago in October. He is mentored by Cancer Center Member Michael J. Heiferman, MD, part of the Cancer Center’s Translational Oncology Research Program and a UI Health Ophthalmologist. Ganesh is part of Heiferman’s research team in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the College of Medicine in a clinical and wet lab investigating the role of angiogenesis in various retinal diseases.
- Komakula, a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Pathology in the College of Medicine, will present his abstract, “Contribution of Myeloid Cell-Derived HMGB1 to the Development of Hepatocellular Carcinoma,” at the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) – The Liver Meeting 2024 in San Diego in November. Mentored by Cancer Center Member Natalia Nieto, PharmD, PhD, part of the Cancer Center’s Cancer Biology Research Program, in her laboratory in the Department of Pathology at the College of Medicine, Komakula’s work critically investigates “the effects of myeloid cell-derived high-mobility group box-1 in hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer).”
- Nassar, a Hematology and Oncology Fellow in the College of Medicine, will present his abstract,“Hispanic Patients Receiving Pediatric-Inspired Asparaginase-Containing ALL Regimens Have High Rates of Hepatotoxicity, Pancreatitis and Treatment Change,” at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting in San Diego in December. Nassar, mentored by Cancer Center Member and UI Health Oncologist John (Sean) Quigley, MD, part of the Cancer Center’s Translational Oncology Research Program, attended medical school at the Jordan University of Science and Technology in Irbid, Jordan. In addition, his Internal Medicine residency and then Chief Residency at the MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC.
Trainee Travel Award Details
The Cancer Center annually funds two rounds of Travel Awards in the Spring and Fall. Students, postdoctoral fellows and clinical residents/fellows engaged in cancer-related research and mentored by faculty at the University of Illinois Chicago are eligible. To be considered, Travel Award applicants should complete the Cancer Center Trainee Membership form if they not done so in the past, and the must have proof of submission of an abstract for an oral or poster presentation at a conference or scientific meeting.