News & Events

The University of Illinois Cancer Center proudly announces the three recipients of its 2026 Fall Trainee Travel Awards. The awards provide each Cancer Center trainee with $500 in the fall semester to offset travel and registration costs for presenting their cancer-related research at a conference or scientific meeting. Because the Cancer Center is part of the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) and its academic health enterprise UI Health, its trainees come from colleges, schools, and programs throughout UIC.

Jessie Li, MD, a resident physician in the College of Medicine mentored by Cancer Center member Frank Weinberg, MD, PhD. She will present the abstract, “Clinical Trials Confer Greatest Benefit in Later-Line, Non-Driver NSCLC: Real-World Evidence from an Urban Academic Program” at the 2026 World Conference on Lung Cancer in Seoul, South Korea, on Sept. 12-15.

Faith Oladejo, a pre-doctoral student in the Graduate Education in bioMedical Sciences (GEMS) PhD Program mentored by Cancer Center Director Jan Kitajewski, PhD. She will present the abstract, “The Role of ACKR1 Expression on Red Blood Cells and the Duffy-Null Phenotype in Regulating Cytokine Trafficking and Metastasis in Breast Cancer” at the 19th AACR Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Atlanta, Georgia, on Oct. 18-21.

Mingyue "Mia" Lu, a pre-doctoral student in the UIC Health Policy and Administration PhD Program mentored by Cancer Center member Nathaniel Tran, PhD. She will present the abstract, “Changes in Smoking Inequalities among U.S. Young Adults, 2017-2023,” at the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science (IAPHS) Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon, on Sept. 29 to Oct. 2. 

The Cancer Center offers trainee travel awards annually in the spring and fall through its Cancer Research Training and Education Coordination (CRTEC) Office.