Get ready! Summer cancer research programs kick off over the next few weeks at the University of Illinois Cancer Center on the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) campus. We are excited to welcome 54 students, chronicle their journeys over the coming months, and share their research projects with end-of-summer posters and presentations.
The undergraduate programs – University of Illinois Diversity in Cancer Research Internship (UI DICR) and Chicago Cancer Health Equity Collaborative Fellows Program (Chicago CHEC) – start June 9.
The high school programs – Cancer Health Equity Summer Scholars (CHESS) and ResearcHStart – start June 16.
The Robert A. Winn Diversity in Clinical Trials:Clinical Investigator Pathway Program (Winn CIPP) for medical students starts June 30.
Cancer Center Summer Programs
Summer research programs are a critical part of the mission of the Cancer Center’s Cancer Research Training and Education Coordination (CRTEC) team to build pipeline programs to train cancer researchers from grade school students to early-stage investigators. The goal is to educate, support and retain trainees to address the needs of the Cancer Center’s diverse patient population.
- UI DICR will host 11 students. Through funding from the American Cancer Society, the program supports a diverse group of undergraduate students to participate in a 10-week summer cancer research internship.
- The Cancer Center is among the sites for Winn CIPP, and this year four medical students from the University of Illinois College of Medicine at UIC will take part the six-week summer service-learning externship in community-based clinical research. Winn is a former director of the Cancer Center who now leads the VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center in Richmond, Virginia.
- CHESS will host 17 students this year in an eight-week summer program that trains and mentors a diverse group of high school students interested in careers focusing on cancer research and other health professions. The CHESS Program is a collaboration between the Cancer Center and the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) Urban Health Program.
- ResearcHStart will introduce a group of six diverse high school students to cancer research by immersing them in biophysics, biochemistry, immunology and pharmacology. The program is a multi-institution program with the Cancer Center, University of Chicago, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Northwestern University and Rush University.
- Chicago CHEC Fellows is a program for undergraduate and postbaccalaureate students at Northeastern Illinois University, UIC, Northwestern University, the City Colleges of Chicago and other Community/ Junior Colleges in the Chicago metropolitan area who are planning to apply to graduate or medical school. A group of 20 Fellows will spend one day each week at UIC. Fellows spend the summer in seminars, workshops, and research lectures learning from leading researchers.
Mentors
Students are mentored by Cancer Center members or UIC faculty who help guide them through their research summer programs.
This year, there are more than mentors: Yamilé Molina, PhD; Marta Markiewicz-Potoczny, PhD; Lobna Elkhadragy, PhD; Matías E. Sánchez, MD; Ameen Salahudeen, MD, PhD; Sage Kim, PhD; Marian Fitzgibbon, PhD; Yulia Komarova, PhD; Vadim Gaponenko, PhD; Joanna Burdette, PhD; Jose Villegas, PhD; Steve Seung-Young Lee, PhD; Jimmy Orjala, PhD; Jonathan Coloff, PhD; Abeer Mahmoud, MD, PhD; Douglas Thomas, PhD; Paul Grippo, PhD; Larisa Nonn, PhD; Abhery Das, PhD; Garth Rauscher, PhD; Saria Lofton, PhD; Jean M. Reading, PhD; Duncan Wardrop, PhD; Shilpa Sant, PhD; Andre Kajdacsy-Balla, MD, PhD; Andrew McLeod, PhD, MS, RD; Zongmin Zhao, PhD; Kadur Lakshminarasimha Murthy, PhD; Jan Kitajewski, PhD; Michael Heiferman, MD; David Tofovic, MD; and Ryan Nguyen, DO.