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University of Illinois Cancer Center member Sean McClellan, MD, MAS, was awarded a $948,000 K01 grant, over five years, from the John E. Fogarty International Center for Advanced Study in the Health Sciences at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which he will use to improve care for breast cancer survivors by advancing research on integrating primary and survivorship care.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has said that this integration of care is a critical priority for cancer survivors in the United States. His work will build on and extend research in America and extend it to Mexico, as the Fogarty Center advances the NIH mission by supporting and facilitating global health research.

Mexico has limited existing cancer survivorship infrastructure, creating an opportunity to evaluate the potential of designing new models that involve primary care physicians in survivorship care from the start, rather than later in established oncology-led systems.

McClellan, who speaks Spanish, is a UI Health family physician and cancer survivorship care provider with strong training in survivorship care. He is a member of the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program at the Cancer Center.

He was part of the inaugural cohort in a unique and impactful training program focused on cancer prevention and survivorship, created by the Cancer Center for the next generation of leaders in preventive medicine and primary care, that continues to grow and flourish in partnership with UI Health and Cook County Health. Called the Oncogeneralist Training Program, it equips clinicians to address the complex medical and psychosocial needs of cancer survivors and to identify patients who may benefit from enhanced cancer prevention strategies based on personal risk factors or family history.

“Our project will develop practical strategies to implement and scale up survivorship care in primary care settings that can be adapted to the U.S., improving long-term survival and quality of life for Americans with breast cancer while strengthening care for survivors globally,” according to the public health relevance statement in the grant announcement.

The Cancer Center is part of UI Health, the academic health system at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). McClellan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC.