Hope Leaders in Community
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
Pairs of scientists and community partners in the University of Illinois Cancer Center Hope Leaders Program presented their research projects at two separate final community dissemination events in March.
The pairs are the 2024 cohort of Hope Leaders, a two-year grant-funded collaboration that connects community organizations with cancer researchers to ensure community health needs shape scientific projects and that science is shared in communities.
The lab of Cancer Center member Ameen Salahudeen, MD, PhD, and community partner Peer Plus Education and Training Advocates hosted a community event at Tender Care Early Learning in the Chicago suburb of Maywood, where students learned about cancer biology research. M&M candies were used to represent single-cell RNA sequencing during the March 23 event, and students learned about unique cell types. They also got a glimpse into medical CT scan interpretation through radiology reports as they learned how the Salahudeen Lab trains AI models and conducts clinical trials as part of the Cancer Center.
The lab of Cancer Center member Constance Jeffery, PhD, and the community organization Brighton Park Neighborhood Council (BPNC) shared their work together on March 7 at Calmeca Academy, a fine arts dual-language Chicago public school on the city’s southwest side. The pair worked together to produce a breast cancer awareness event, and community members learned about how to check their breasts for abnormalities using gel bags. Air pollution and its effects on lung cancer were another focus, and community members planted plants as one way to combat pollution. They also learned about how the Jeffery lab uses structural methods, such as x-ray crystallography, to solve the structure of protein complexes involved in cancer, and built their own 3D-model of DNA out of paper.
Hope Leaders began in 2023, and it is run through the Cancer Center’s Community Engagement and Health Equity Office. Each year, two community organizations are paired with two scientists from the Cancer Center's Cancer Biology or Translational Oncology research programs. A $20,000 grant to each community organization and a $30,000 grant to each cancer researcher support these collaborations.
The 2026 Hope Leaders cohort will be announced soon.
