Inside Cancer Careers

In the last episode of Inside Cancer Careers, "Empowering the Next Generation of Women Scientists: The Sallie Rosen Kaplan Fellowship Program - Part 1", we learned about the origins of the Sallie Rosen Kaplan (SRK) Fellowship Program from Dr. Jeff Rosen and Ms. Erika Ginsburg. In this episode, we feature a discussion with two alums of the SRK fellowship program, Dr. Tiffany Lyle and Dr. Kylynda Bauer. Dr. Lyle and Dr. Bauer share their experiences in the program and how it has impacted their careers. They discuss the importance of mentorship, networking, and embracing the unexpected in science, amongst other topics. SHOW NOTES Tiffany Lyle, DVM, PhD Cook Research Inc. Kylynda Bauer, PhD Tim Greten, MD NCI Center for Cancer Research Intramural Continuing Umbrella of Research Experiences (iCURE) Program Sallie Rosen Kaplan (SRK) Postdoctoral Fellowship for Women Scientists DiSC Assessment Comparative Biomedical Scientist Training Program TEDx Talk with Dr. Kylynda Bauer AD: NanCI - Connecting Scientists mobile application YOUR TURN RECOMMENDATIONS The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life, and Achieve Real Happiness by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear Marine Corps Marathon The Wrinkle in Time Quintet Boxed Set (A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, An Acceptable Time) by Madeleine L'Engle Radiolab Podcast Significant Others Podcast CENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT) Inside Cancer Careers Podcast CCT Website LEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE Online By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237) U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute

In this episode, host Dr. Oliver Bogler speaks with Dr. Jeffrey Rosen and Ms. Erika Ginsburg about the Sallie Rosen Kaplan (SRK) Postdoctoral Fellowship for Women Scientists. Dr. Rosen, who helped establish the fellowship in honor of his aunt, shares the program's origin story and its impact on advancing women in biomedical research. Ms. Ginsburg discusses how the program has evolved from a recruitment tool to a retention strategy, emphasizing leadership coaching, mentoring, and skill-building. They also explore the positive outcomes of the SRK program, including increased self-confidence, improved work-life balance, and the successful career transitions of the fellows. Later they share their career journeys and offer advice to those interested in a career in science. SHOW NOTES Jeffrey M. Rosen, Ph.D. Erika Ginsburg, M.A. Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) Sallie Rosen Kaplan(SRK) Postdoctoral Fellowship for Women Scientists A Coaching-Based Leadership Program for Women Postdoctoral Fellows at the National Cancer Institute that Cultivates Self-confidence and Persistence in STEMM AD: NanCI – Connecting Scientists mobile app Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) Award Journal of Mammary Gland Biology and Neoplasia YOUR TURN RECOMMENDATIONS Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee or PBS series with Ken Burns Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions by Richard Harris CENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT) Inside Cancer Careers Podcast CCT Website LEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE Online By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237) U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute

In this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, we have Dr. Swati Choksi, a Staff Scientist at NCI Center for Cancer Research, and Dr. Christophe Marchand, Deputy Associate Director in the Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis and former Staff Scientist, sharing insights about their roles in cancer research. They talk about the advantages and responsibilities of being a staff scientist, such as mentoring and training early career researchers and conducting their own experiments. They emphasize the importance of staff scientists in fostering collaborations within and outside the research team. Additionally, they delve into the transferability of skills, potential career paths for staff scientists, and more.  SHOW NOTES Swati S. Choski, Ph.D.: https://ccr.cancer.gov/staff-directory/swati-s-choksi Center for Cancer Research: https://ccr.cancer.gov/ Christophe Marchand, Ph.D.: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophemarchand/ Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis: https://dtp.cancer.gov/organization/oad/default.htm NCI Intramural Research Program: https://irp.nih.gov/about-us/our-programs/nci NIH Staff Scientists & Staff Clinicians: https://oir.nih.gov/sourcebook/personnel/ipds-appointment-mechanisms/staff-scientist NCI Staff Scientists and Staff Clinicians Career Enrichment Program (SCEP): https://www.cancer.gov/grants-training/training/idwb/career-enrichment-program CCR Staff Scientist & Staff Clinician Organization: https://ccrod.cancer.gov/confluence/display/CCRSSSCArchive/By-Laws NIH Assembly of Scientists: https://oir.nih.gov/sourcebook/committees-advisory-ddir/assembly-scientists-aos AD—NanCI–Connecting Scientists mobile application: https://www.cancer.gov/grants-training/training/nanci-app Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/  And The Band Played On: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106273/ Center for Research Strategy: https://www.cancer.gov/about-nci/organization/crs YOUR TURN RECOMMENDATIONS Life is Beautiful: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118799/ The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: https://www.amazon.com/God-Small-Things-Novel/dp/0812979656 Leadership Freak: https://leadershipfreak.blog/ Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick: https://www.amazon.com/Co-Intelligence-Living-Working-Ethan-Mollick/dp/059371671X CENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT) Inside Cancer Careers Podcast CCT Website LEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE Online By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237) U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute

In this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, we hear from Dr. Eytan Ruppin, Dr. Tiangen Chang, and Dr. Yingying Cao, computational scientists at NCI's Center for Cancer Research. They discuss their newly developed AI tool, LORIS, which can predict how a patient will respond to immunotherapy. LORIS analyzes six variables commonly measured in clinical settings to calculate a score indicating the patient's likelihood of response. They also share insights into the future of AI in cancer research and their career paths in science and offer advice to those interested in pursuing careers in biology, medicine, and computer science. SHOW NOTES Eytan Ruppin, M.D., Ph.D.  Tiangen Chang, Ph.D.  Yingying Cao, Ph.D.  Cancer Data Science Laboratory  NCI Center for Cancer Research (CCR)  Chang, TG., Cao, Y., Sfreddo, H.J. et al. LORIS robustly predicts patient outcomes with immune checkpoint blockade therapy using common clinical, pathologic and genomic features. Nat Cancer (2024)  LOgistic Regression-based Immunotherapy-response Score (LORIS)  Escher, Gödel, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter AD NanCI – Connecting Scientists YOUR TURN RECOMMENDATIONS Intelligence Squared (Podcast)  World Views, An Introduction to the History and Philosophy of Science by Richard DeWitt New Scientist Season 2: Episode 1 “The Future of AI and Cancer Research” CENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT) Inside Cancer Careers Podcast CCT Website LEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE Online By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237) U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute

In this special episode of Inside Cancer Careers, we hear from Dr. Karen Knudsen, CEO of the American Cancer Society (ACS).  Dr. Knudsen shares her career journey into science and the path that led her to her current leadership role at the ACS. She shares her story of finding the right mentor, asking the right questions, and being open to new opportunities.    SHOW NOTES Dr. Karen Knudsen American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research Cancer Letter interviews with Dr. Knudsen NCI Rising Scholars: Cancer Research Seminar Series  AD NanCI - Connecting Scientists mobile application  YOUR TURN: GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS TED Talks by Simon Sinek New York Times Podcast: Hard Fork CENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT) Inside Cancer Careers Podcast CCT Website LEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE Online By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237) U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute

In this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, we hear from Dr. Ray DuBois, Director of the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center, Associate Provost for Cancer Programs at MUSC, and Executive Chair of the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research along with Dr. Marvella Ford, Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at MUSC and Associate Director of Hollings Cancer Center for Population Sciences and Community Outreach and Engagement. Dr. DuBois and Dr. Ford discuss the community outreach and engagement work of the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center, emphasizing the importance of collaborating with community organizations and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to train and educate individuals in the field of cancer. They also discuss the significance of their work in reaching underserved populations and addressing cancer disparities in their state. Additionally, they share insights into their career journeys, personal experiences, and more. SHOW NOTES Ray DuBois, M.D., Ph.D. Marvella Ford, Ph.D. MUSC Hollings Cancer Center CDC’s Best Chance Network partners with South Carolina Hollings HPV Vaccination Van South Carolina Cancer Health Equity Research Training Youth Enjoy Science Program (SC CHEER YES) South Carolina Cancer Disparities Research Center (SC CADRE) Mark Foundation for Cancer Research Emerging Leader Award Endeavor Award for Team Science AD NanCI – Connecting Scientists mobile application YOUR TURN RECOMMENDATIONS Mobituaries (podcast) Pivot (podcast) CENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT) Inside Cancer Careers Podcast CCT Website LEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE Online By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237) U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute

In this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, we are joined by Dr. Elizabeth Jaffee, the current chair of the President's Cancer Panel, and Ms. Daniela Monterroza, an NCI Communications Fellow who supports the panel. They discuss the panel's responsibility in overseeing the National Cancer Program and National Cancer Plan, emphasizing the importance of patient-centric care, community engagement, and addressing social determinants of health in the battle against cancer. Dr. Jaffee and Ms. Monterroza also offer advice to those starting their careers, highlighting the tremendous opportunities in cancer research and public health careers, and stressing the importance of pursuing one's passion.   Show Notes:   Elizabeth Jaffee, M.D. Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center Daniela Monterroza President's Cancer Panel National Cancer Program National Cancer Plan  Ad: Interagency Oncology Task Force Fellowship (IOTF)  Marie Curie: A Life NCI Communications Fellowship NIH Pathways Program for Recent Graduates  Your Turn Recommendations:  NIH News in Health Newsletter Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan  

In this episode, we hear from Dr. Yamini Dalal, Senior Investigator and Senior Advisor for Faculty Development, and Dr. Sweta Sikder, Postdoctoral Fellow in NCI Center for Cancer Research. They discuss their experiences of moving to the US for their scientific careers, including the challenges they faced and the opportunities and benefits of working in the US. They also share their paths to biology, passion for their research, and much more!  Show Notes  Yamini Dalal, Ph.D.  Sweta Sikder, Ph.D.  NCI Center for Cancer Research (CCR)  Biochemistry by Donald Voet and Judith Voet  NCI K99/R00 - Pathway to Independence Award  NCI Intramural Research Program  Ad: Interagency Oncology Task Force Fellowship (IOTF)  Your Turn Recommendations:  The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI by Fei-Fei Li (book)  Hear the Wind Sing by Haruki Murakami (book)  Behind Her Eyes (Netflix series)  Poor Things (movie)  The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (book) & 3 Body Problem (Netflix series)  The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science by Michael Strevens (book)   TRANSCRIPT  Oliver Bogler  Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute where we explore all the different ways people fight cancer and hear their stories. I'm your host, Oliver Bogler from NCI's Center for Cancer Training. May is Asian American and Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month and is dedicated to celebrating the contributions members of these communities make to the United States. One of the things I love about science is that it is an international enterprise, bringing people from all over the world together to focus on shared goals like ending cancer as we know it. As a result, many scientists leave their homes and live and work in another country.   Today, we're talking to two scientists originally from India who have made the NCI's Intramural Research Program their scientific home. And we'll be talking to them about what it was like to come to the US to pursue their science and how it's going and their careers. Listen through to the end of the show to hear our guests make some interesting recommendations and where we invite you to take your turn.  So it's a pleasure to welcome Dr. Yamini Dalal, senior investigator in the Laboratory of Receptor Biology and Gene Expression in NCI’s Center for Cancer Research. Welcome.    Yamini Dalal  Thank you all of you.    Oliver Bogler   Welcome also to Dr. Sweta Sikder. She is a visiting postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Yamini's research group. Welcome.    Sweta Sikder   Thank you.    Oliver Bogler  So you both came to America during your early careers. Yamini, you came to pursue graduate work at Purdue and Sweta, you came for your postdoc at the NCI. We'll talk about your careers later, but I wanted to start by asking you what it was like to move to another country for your science.    Yamini Dalal   All right. Well, thank you, Oliver, for hosting us on this fantastic show. I've listened to the blogs in the past and I really find it a great way to disseminate what we're doing here at the NCI and share our perspectives. I came to the US when I was, I think, 22 or 23 and I left India on Independence Day, which was sort of a bittersweet feeling. And I moved to the Midwest to pursue graduate school. And the first thing that was the biggest challenge for me was the weather because I grew up in Bombay, which is subtropical, and it's never cold. And the very first thing I discovered about the Midwest is that it gets really, really, really cold in the winter. And then in a way, I suppose that spurred my scientific studies because I didn't want to leave Lily Hall, which is nice and warm all winter round. Sweta?    Sweta Sikder  Yes, so for me, it was a very unique kind of an experience. I came to US for the first time to join Yamini’s lab as a postdoctoral fellow. And incidentally, I landed or my flight landed exactly the day before the government shut down. That is in 2020, where the whole world shut down to say.     Yamini Dalal  On the Ides of March very appropriately.    Sweta Sikder  I just had a day to come to NIH to get registered here. And then we were all like doing the pandemic shutdown and at home. So when I was pursuing my career, there was always this thing that you should, if you are in science, you should always have that US exposure of science. But for me, when I landed finally in the US, it was a very, it was a very different kind of experience.    Things started changing slowly. But what I faced for a long time is like being in a society which is so open, but where you cannot really access people because of the pandemic shutdown. So now I'm more glad that we have like a very vibrant campus. We meet lots of people and, but it was all not accessible when I came to US.    Oliver Bogler  So making a connection with people that may be at the same career stage as you are, and maybe who have some shared background, maybe also coming from the country you were coming from, is that an important element? And obviously, the pandemic made that super hard, right?    Sweta Sikder  Yes, and also when I came to US, I had this open kind of a, I wanted to have an open mind and wanted to get an exposure of other culture, the other society as well. Obviously, you want people coming from the same country like me from India, you want to connect with them and then share your things, but I wanted to have a different kind of an experience. I wanted to mix, see other people, talk to them, have kind of a unique experience, which was kind of difficult. We all met through Zooms and online meetings. And even when we used to see people, when I used to go around for a walk or something, I used to see people walking, but we all maintained that social distancing thing. And it was super, super difficult at that point of time, but now looking back, I feel that it kind of mentored me that the pandemic time when we were all shut down, it also helped me in my inner and my personal growth as well.     Yamini Dalal  I think there's a resilience, right, that we had to reach into during the pandemic. And I think you did a really great job reaching inside yourself to survive those first six months completely alone.    Sweta Sikder  Yes, and also at this point, I would like to mention this, that this lab was super helpful, like all of my lab colleagues, because I haven't met them ever. Like it was the first time meeting them, but they were very, very helpful reaching out because when I came for the first time, I had to figure out like many logistic things, right? Like doing your social security number, having a bank account, like all those minute things.  But I'm grateful in the sense that I got very supportive colleagues, my mentor, Yamini here. And they were always like a text away to help me at any time despite the pandemic.    Oliver Bogler  You mentioned also that I guess the United States is kind of a draw for scientists from across the world. And that's certainly been true over the last many decades. Um, tell me more about that. What, what specifically were you both, uh, hoping to accomplish by moving to the United States?    Yamini Dalal  Yeah, I think, you know, my feeling, Oliver, was when I was growing up in Bombay, I grew up in a very specific, very privileged class of people that all had similar exposures. And it really comes down to, I had no exposure to people that were outside of that little bubble. And we all went to really great schools. Our parents were professionals with advanced degrees. You know, we got exposed to like the best science, the best art, but it was all in this bubble of not knowing really even anything about India when I was growing up. I felt like I didn't know what it meant to be really Indian. I knew what it meant to be a Bombayite, in South Bombay, which is sort of like Manhattan, but I didn't know what it really meant to be from a different social class or from a different culture from what I had been exposed to.   The beautiful thing about going to Purdue, especially, was that it's an extremely international school. I still have friends I've made there from all over the world. They're faculty now in New Zealand and Australia and England and Europe. And I had friends from Gary, Indiana and Montana. Places I had never heard of, maybe I read about them in books. And because Peru had a great ecology department, many of my friends were actually people in their 30s who were coming back to grad school after having worked for a decade in really low paying jobs, principally because they had undergraduate debt, a concept to which I had never been exposed. Because in India, you don't have undergraduate debt. You don't have no debt at all. Indians don't usually, they don't embrace the concept of debt because schooling is generally much, much more affordable there, even the best schools.    The biggest shock to me was to find out most of my friends had thousands of dollars in debt. And as a consequence, they had to wait almost a decade to come back to grad school, which means they took it very, very seriously. It was very different for someone like me who'd just been on this kind of trajectory this whole time. So I got exposed to the poverty, the idea that poverty can really alter your scientific trajectory very significantly and that you've got to be given an opportunity.  And this is where Purdue really excelled because they had RA ships, research assistantships and TA ships that funded almost everybody. Nobody really had to pay for grad school. Of course you had to work really hard. I spent 20 hours a week as a TA. I thought that experience was absolutely transformative. I'd never taught before in a formal setting. To teach 20 hours a week to people f

    In this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, Dr. Oliver Bogler interviews two guests, Dr. Itai Yanai, who is a Professor at NYU School of Medicine, and Dr. Martin Lercher, who is a Professor at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. They are also co-founders of Night Science, which is the creative aspect of scientific research. They discuss the importance of scientific creativity and explore why it is often overlooked in scientific training and how it can be nurtured. Drs. Yanai and Lercher then discuss their early inspirations for pursuing science, their career paths, and the importance of interdisciplinary thinking.   Show Notes  Dr. Martin Lercher  Dr. Itai Yanai   Night Science Workshops  "It takes two to think" editorial in Nature Biotechnology  Night Science Episode with Daniel Kahneman   Night Science Episode with Albert-László Barabási  The Society of Genes (book)  Ad: NanCI - Connecting Scientists mobile app  The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins    Your Turn Recommendations:  Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman  The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron  Night Science Podcasts   TRANSCRIPT Oliver Bogler  Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute where we explore all the different ways people fight cancer and hear their stories. I'm your host, Oliver Bogler from NCI Center for Cancer Training. Today, we're talking about scientific creativity, an often overlooked but vital element in a successful research career and how you can take practical steps to nurture it, evoke it and connect with others around it. I'm going to admit I'm really excited about today's conversation.  Listen through to the end of the show to hear our guests make some interesting recommendations and where we invite you to Take Your Turrn.   So it's my pleasure to welcome two very special guests, Dr. Itai Yanai, professor at the Institute for Systems Genetics and in Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine. Welcome, Itai.    Itai Yanai  Thank you, Oliver. It's fantastic to be here.    Oliver Bogler  And Dr. Martin Lercher, professor and head of the Institute of Computational Cell Biology at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany. Welcome, Martin.    Martin Lercher  Well, thanks. Thank you so much for inviting us.    Oliver Bogler  So it seems obvious that scientists need to be creative, of course, as well as rigorous and thorough, ethical and informed and probably many other things. But we rarely ever talk about creativity, let alone teach it to early career scientists. Why is that? And what are you doing to change that?    Martin Lercher  Well, we think it's a disaster that it is like that. And we want to make our contribution to change that. Why that is? I think it's partly historical that, you know, it seemed more important to distinguish science from non-science, from philosophy, for example, which is great at generating ideas, but not good at throwing out wrong ideas. So historically, scientists training has focused on what we call the day science part, on the testing of ideas, and not so much on the generation of ideas. So I think that's at least part of the explanation. Itai, what do yobu think?    Itai Yanai  Yeah, well, it may also be that it's more straightforward to teach the day science. We can have a kind of control over the day science part because what is day science? Day science is you have a hypothesis and you're going to test it. You're going to design an experiment. You're going to build in controls. You really are calling the shots in day science and it's harder relatively to sort of wrap our minds around the notion that we cannot control the creative process like that.    Oliver Bogler  So you've both used the term day science that may be new to our audience. What is day science and is there a night science?    Itai Yanai  Yeah, these are terms that were coined by the biologist Francois Jacob, who together with Lwoff and Monod shared the 1965 Nobel Prize for elucidating essentially the principles of gene regulation for the first time. And so this Nobel Prize winning biologist, when he writes his memoir called The Statue Within, he could have taken a victory lap.    He could have said, I'm such a genius. Look at this amazing work that I did. I'm just brilliant. And of course, a brilliant mind will do brilliant things. Instead, what he does in that book is paint a picture of the reality of doing science, where you're in constant confusion. You're in the cloud, as another biologist, Uri Alon, likes to say. And so he distinguishes in this book two modes: day science and night science. Day science is what from the outside, we traditionally call science, which is this march of rationality, this controlled experiments that we talked about before. And so day science is when you put on your lab coat and you know what you're going to do, but night science, that's that part where you're confused. That's that part where you need to be creative. And Martin, don't we think that there's something about this dichotomy. Doesn't it just like cut to the core of what it means to be doing the process of science?    Martin Lercher  Yeah, when we teach workshops about the creative process in science, I think that's the most important message that we give people, that there is this dichotomy, that there are these two complementary processes in science. When we think about how science works, we always think about what we call day science, right? The hero of day science is Sir Karl Popper, the philosopher of science who said, you know, we cannot prove that something's true, but we can falsify something. So that's what we need to do as scientists.   But in reality, there's this flip side that we hardly ever talk about. And we have to constantly switch between those two modes of doing science, between day science where we test ideas, and then we have to transition into night science where we have to think about, you know, is this really how it works? Is there maybe something else that I'm missing? Is there a question that I'm not asking that I should be asking? And then once I found that question, I can move back into day science and test that. So just understanding that there are these two sides is already a big step towards using your own creativity.    Oliver Bogler  So of course, scientists are trained exhaustively in day science, right? I heard you mention Martin that you have a workshop that you teach, you and Itai teach on night science. So what are the skills that you're teaching attendees of those courses?    Itai Yanai  Yeah, we like to say that what creativity is, is essentially a bag of tricks. And we scientists, we pick up the tricks over the years. What Martin and I have been thinking about is whether we can do that in a more straightforward, streamlined way that reduces needless suffering, because the tricks that we pick up along the way are tried and true. They've been tested and they are very teachable. We can all become more creative. And so what the workshop is essentially is a set of sessions where every session we discuss a specific thinking tool that we impart. And these are general tools. It's not to solve a specific problem that a participant comes with, although we do practice on those, but these are general tools that can help you solve any problem really.    Oliver Bogler  Can you give me some examples?    Martin Lercher  Oh well, the simplest and we believe most powerful example seems almost trivial. It's just to talk to someone. We wrote an editorial about that with the title, It Takes Two to Think. And we think that if you're very lucky, you have a science buddy. You have somebody who you know very well, somebody you like, a friend, with who you like to talk about science.   And the crucial thing is, it's not just about talking, it's about how you talk. And there we borrow this idea from improvisational theater. In improvisational theater, actors get on a stage, they don't have a script. And that's the same when we try to figure out something, when we try to figure out what could be the answer to some problem that we have, what could be the question that we really want to ask.  We don't have a script. And if we say an idea, right? If I say an idea and Itai says, no, that's nonsense, right? Then that kills that idea.     Itai Yanai  That's it, the conversation's over.    Martin Lercher  And maybe that idea really was stupid, but I think it would kill it prematurely. We first have to figure out together what's in there, right? Whether we can develop it into something interesting. And...    Itai Yanai  And even if I said something stupid, there might have been a reason why I said it. And if we're curious and if we genuinely like the other person, so it works incredibly better if the participants are friends, then you say, just like Daniel Kahneman said on our podcast, when one person would say something with his collaboration with Amos Tversky, the other person would say, well, you know, on the face of it, it sounds like a silly thing to say. It sounds wrong, but we are programmed to dismiss any idea we hear and there, you know, let's be kind to one another. There must be a reason also why the person said it. Let's, let's try to explore that. And if you have the patience and if you have this sort of really openness in your heart to explore it, then magical things happen. An idea can be born.    Oliver Bogler  That sounds very different from your typical research group meeting where...    Martin Lercher  Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, as humans, we have this general tendency. We like to shoot down other people's ideas. If you say something that sounds strange to me, I'm going to tell you why it has to be wrong.  

In this episode, host Oliver Bogler speaks with NCI fellows live at the American Association for Cancer Researchers (AACR) Annual Meeting in San Diego, California. They share their science, career path, and thoughts on attending the AACR annual meeting.   Show Notes:   ·      American Association for Cancer Researchers (AACR) Annual Meeting 2024   Wayne Lawrence, Dr.P.H.,M.P.H. , Research Fellow, Metabolic Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI Abstract Title: "Severe housing cost burden and premature cancer mortality by state Medicaid expansion status"   Sonam Tulsyan, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, Laboratory of Translational Genomics, Michael Dean Research Laboratory, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI Abstract Title: "A high rate of episomal HPV16 is present in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma tumors by long-read whole genome sequencing"   Patricia Erickson, M.P.H., Predoctoral Fellow, Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI Abstract Title: "Carbaryl use and cancer incidence in the agricultural health study - An updated analysis"   Katrina Jia, Postbaccalaureate Fellow, Oncogenomics Section, Center for Cancer Research, NCI Abstract Title: "Endogenous HiBiT-tagging of PAX3-FOXO1 reveals downregulation of the fusion oncogene by CDK inhibitors and has synergy with vincristine"   Jazmyn Bess, M.S., Postbaccalaureate Fellow and iCURE Scholar, Clinical Genetics Branch, Trans-Divisional Research Program, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI Abstract Title: "Impact of delayed processing on cfDNA quantity and quality using STRECK cfDNA tubes: Connect Pilot Study" Connect for Cancer Prevention Study Intramural Continuing Umbrella of Research Excellence (iCURE)Program   Deborah Tadesse, B.S., Postbaccalaureate Fellow, Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI Abstract Title: "Interaction between solvent exposure and genetic susceptibility and risk for bladder cancer"   Ad: NanCI - Connecting Scientists mobile application   TRANSCRIPT Oliver Bogler Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute where we explore all the different ways people fight cancer and hear their stories. I'm your host, Oliver Bogler from NCI's Center for Cancer Training. Today, we're doing something a bit different – we are talking to people at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research. This meeting is one of the high-points of the calendar for people working to end cancer as we know it for all, and it is truly big tent – at the April 2024 conference in San Diego, over 22,000 people registered to attend. AACR is a strong community of over 55,000 people and 53% are Associate Members who, according to the AACR website, are young laboratory scientists and physicians-in-training (graduate students, medical students and residents, and clinical and postdoctoral fellows). I’ve been a member since my postdoc days – and I am proud of the way AACR welcomes and supports early career individuals. There is a lot going on at the AACR annual meeting – far too much to cover in this episode – check out AACR.org to learn more. We are going to focus in on one of the most important elements of a scientific conference – the opportunity it gives to scientists to present their work to their peers. And specifically, we will visit with NCI fellows at their poster sessions. Because of this format we won’t have a Your Turn segment – Your Turn will be back next time. Let’s start by meeting some of our fellows and hearing about their science. So I'm speaking with Wayne Lawrence, who's here presenting his poster. You are a research fellow at NCI. Right, Wayne?   Wayne Lawrence Yes, I am a research fellow.   Oliver Bogler  So tell me, where in the NCI are you?   Wayne Lawrence I'm in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, specifically in the Metabolic Epidemiology Branch. So all my research seeks to understand why are certain people more likely to be diagnosed with cancer, and why is the mortality proportion greater amongst certain populations than others? So what role does the social environment contribute to disparities in cancer outcomes? So part of my work here, for example, is I want to examine the role of severe housing cost burden on premature death due to cancer. So we know that in the United States, more and more people are spending more of their household income on housing. So we've seen that recently, there's been an increase in people expending 50% or more of their income on housing, which we know that if you spend that much on housing, you’re more likely to sacrifice seeking medical care or other basic needs to thrive.   Oliver Bogler Right, you just don't have money for your medicines or to see the doctor.   Wayne Lawrence Exactly. So I want to see among individuals that reside in areas with high housing cost burden is that associated with an increased risk and premature deaths due to cancer? So what we did is that we pulled data from the American Community Survey, and we pulled housing cost burden national throughout the entire United States. We see that in the coastal areas, both East Coast and West Coast and parts of the south areas, they had that highest quintile of severe housing cost burden. So we wanted to see is that associated with increased risk of premature cancer mortality. What we observed is that compared to areas that the lowest severe housing cost burden, so lowest number of people that spend less than 50% of their household income on housing, compared to them, those who reside in the highest quintile had an increased risk of all-cause mortality.   Oliver Bogler What are the practical implications?   Wayne Lawrence So, my work, I guess, at the end of day is to provide evidence to show to highlight populations that are disadvantaged or structurally marginalized to say, hey, this is a group that we have not truly examined, or this is a group that is disproportionately burdened by cancer and disease. And we try to gather information and hopefully to pass on to inform policy or interventions more specifically. So, my master's and doctorate are in public health in epidemiology and with a focus in cancer epidemiology. But my training at the end of the day is in social epidemiology, so I examine why does where you live, work, age, play, how does that affect your quality of life, of disease risk and long-term survival?   Oliver Bogler  Fantastic. And if I can ask, do you already have plans for your next step?   Wayne Lawrence Yes, I'm getting ready or am in the process of preparing to apply for tenure track positions. I've been fortunate to get some recruitment letters. So I'm gonna start seeing what's out there.   [music]   Oliver Bogler Next I caught up with Sonam Tulsyan, postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Michael Dean's lab in laboratory of Translational Genomics in the Center for Cancer Research. Sonam Tulsyan Okay, I'm presenting on high rate of episomal HPV 16, which I found in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. I have taken 16 head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. These are fresh frozen tumor biopsies, and out of 10 samples I found 8 to be episomal, and 2 to be HPV negative. And I've also done the whole genome distribution of the CNV burden. And I found that there is a gain of chromosome 3q and chromosome 5q. And sometimes some activities also going on in chromosome 8, and chromosome 12 over here. It's causing chromosome duplications, ploidy. And then basically the chromosome integrates at E1 E2, and which is which are responsible for the E6 is E7 gene activation.   Oliver Bogler And is that then associated with the development of cancer?   Sonam Tulsyan Yes, especially for oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma. So this is a special subtype of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, where HPV… it is basically dependent on HPV. HPV infection.   Oliver Bogler And so this knowledge that you've developed, will that lead to better screening or more prevention, how can you apply this practically?   Sonam Tulsyan This is responsible for better screening.   [music]    Oliver Bogler  All right, we're talking with Patricia Erickson, who is a graduate student at the University of Maryland and doing her research at the NCI. Tell us about your work.   Patricia Erickson Yes. So for my, my poster here, and my dissertation research is focused on pesticide exposures, and risk of cancer and specifically, I was looking at carbaryl. And I did another project looking at telomere length, but today carbaryl and it's a pesticide that's used residentially and agriculturally. And so I looked at a host of different cancer sites, I think about 30, and did different analysis for and I found some really interesting findings for stomach cancer and aggressive prostate cancer.   Oliver Bogler Okay, so this it's an insecticide. So it's primarily coming into our food chain, is that kind of what's happening or food supply?   Patricia Erickson I'm looking at it in terms of occupational exposure.   Oliver Bogler Oh, people were spraying it onto the field. Sorry, OK.    Patricia Erickson Yes, people whore are spraying it, but you could go to Home Depot and buy it and spray it yourself. So oh, there's potential to be exposed through dietary sources to residential sources, and then occupational ways as well.   Oliver Bogler  Okay. And what and what did you find? Did you find that it was a significant risk factor?   Patricia Erickson Yep. So for stomach cancer, I found that those who are in the highest exposure category had about a twofold increased risk of stomach cancer, compared to the non-users. It is based on small numbers, okay. But there was something there. And then when I lagged the exposure by five years, which means I just count the exposure five years pr

In this episode, we hear from Dr. Khadijah Mitchell, an Assistant Professor of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at Fox Chase Cancer Center and a former NCI fellow. Dr. Mitchell discusses her research on lung cancer and health disparities. She highlights the importance of the menthol cigarette ban in reducing health disparities and shares her experience in advocacy work. Dr. Mitchell shares details on books she has co-authored that emphasize the significance of inclusive instruction and mentoring in science.  She provides advice for those interested in careers in cancer health disparities and more.   Show Notes:   Khadijah A. Mitchell, Ph.D. Fox Chase Cancer Center Office of Community Outreach What Inclusive Instructors Do? Principles and Practices for Excellence in College Teaching (book) Enhancing Inclusive Instruction (book)   Ad: NCI Data Science Training   NCI Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis NCI Sallie Rosen Kaplan Program   Your Turn Recommendations: LEGO for Adults For All Mankind TV series on Apple TV   TRANSCRIPT Oliver Bogler Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute where we explore all the different ways people fight cancer and we hear their stories. I'm your host, Oliver Bogler from NCI’s Center for Cancer Training. Today we're talking to Dr. Khadijah Mitchell, Assistant Professor in the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program at Fox Chase Cancer Center and Temple University in Philadelphia about her work, her professional engagement and launching a research program in an academic setting. Listen through to the end of the show to hear our guests make an interesting recommendation and where we invite you to take your turn. Dr. Mitchell, welcome.   Khadijah A. Mitchell So thank you so much, Dr. Bogler, for the invitation.   Oliver Bogler So you joined Fox Chase in July, 2023 to pursue your research on cancer health disparities. What prompted the move?   Khadijah A. Mitchell Well, previously I was an assistant professor at a small liberal arts college and there I balanced my time with research as well as teaching. And it was just the natural evolution as my research program grew, I knew I had to shift to a research institution that would accommodate future directions that my research was going in. And so here, I'm really fortunate that we, because I'm at a comprehensive cancer center, designated by the NCI. We have an Office of Outreach and Engagement, and a lot of what I do engages underrepresented populations. And so to have that research and infrastructure to allow my work to go in any direction was really appealing to me.   Oliver Bogler Please tell us more about your research.   Khadijah A. Mitchell Oh, sure. So recently, I've focused my energy on lung cancer because I think a lot that we can consider lung cancer an underdog of the cancer community. We have a lot of stigma associated with this particular cancer type. So I think that there's not as large of a survivor advocate community as you may see with breast or prostate cancer. So more people actually pass away unfortunately from this type of cancer than some of those other ones can bind and we know a huge risk factor is smoking and so I have an interest in that particular type of environmental exposure but also radon which is odorless colorless gas that causes lung cancer and so right now I'm really interested in the environmental exposome and how that impacts our genome so thinking about these interactions. And, you know, I think that one powerful thing about the radon is we see that that is actually the leading cause of lung cancer in never smokers. And so I hope that these projects will help us to find either new smoking-related or radon-related biomarkers that could be risk factors and that we can change, for example, lung cancer screening guidelines and policies that will help a lot of people.   Oliver Bogler You used the term exposome. It's not a term I've heard before, but I guess it's another “omic” . What is the exposome?   Khadijah A. Mitchell Exactly, so that's a great question before I delved into this I also did not know that So we have internal and external exposure and it literally is the sum collections of all your exposures.  So whether it's chronic or acute and how that changes your biology. I've looked at genomics transcriptomics proteomics in the past and I never have integrated this exposome. So really excited about where that's going.   Oliver Bogler So the exposome is a sort of, how should I think about it? Insults to the body like radon you mentioned, or I guess ultraviolet light or toxins. But is it also beneficial things like vitamins or is that not considered to be part of the exposome?   Khadijah A. Mitchell It is considered to be part of the exposome. Interestingly I think it is a net-sum game. So some of the things are good and you can think of them as pro, and some are anti. And sometimes even a little exposure to things that we may think, oh, that's probably not the best for our body to be exposed to. In fact, it can prime you to repair that later on.   Oliver Bogler So last year, the new National Cancer Plan was unveiled by the President's Cancer Panel, and in response to President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden's Moonshot goals of reducing cancer mortality by at least 50 % over the next 25 years, a big part of that will be cancer prevention. And that in turn includes further reduction in tobacco use. You've already mentioned your interest in lung cancer. In connection with that, there's been public discourse about menthol cigarettes recently. In particular, that's been a spark point. What's that debate about and what's your perspective on it and the National Cancer Plan in general?   Khadijah A. Mitchell One I have to say I'm very excited that we are revisiting the menthol cigarette debate and the National Cancer Plan because this is not the first time we've had this debate in public discourse. And the issue is that although cigarette smoking has gone down for decades, in fact, menthol cigarette smoking has actually increased. And it's actually a third of the market. And so there have been statewide bans and some citywide bans who are trying to put forth the menthol ban. We've been successful with other types of flavorings and additives, but for some reason, the menthol has been tricky. So by the federal government stepping in and saying, we're going to protect the health of Americans, that was very significant. And so I think that it's very timely that we're having this discussion again right now because a lot of our conversations center on vaping and thinking about flavoring there and not so much in combustible tobacco. And that is still the leading cause of death and disability. And so by targeting that, we have a huge opportunity for public health. I think that in particular for the populations that I study, the most vulnerable, they're more likely to smoke menthol cigarettes compared to others. So for example, when we look at African Americans who do smoke, 85 % of them smoke menthol cigarettes. It's a very high, when we look at veterans, youth, LGBTQ, so there are all these populations that are basically have been targeted with the menthol tobacco. And so we have a great opportunity to help reduce the risk and save those lives targeting the menthol debate. You know, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the social justice aspects of this. How do we enforce this ban? Of course, the FDA, the NIH is not an enforcement body. And so we have to think about how to be delicate and sensitive to that to those populations who are at risk.   Oliver Bogler So I'm curious about how you pick the topics that you work on in your science. What's your creative process? How do you settle upon, as you have at this point in your career, lung cancer as the point of emphasis?   Khadijah A. Mitchell So that's interesting. So I actually have the same process I use for creative writing. So in my spare time, I generate ideas. And so I try to use this with my science. So that includes when I am idea generating, appealing to all of my senses. So I make sure that, you know, sight, you know, smell, taste, those type of things. So that's for the aesthetic. But then I actually like to think of big questions that maybe individuals haven't considered or new approaches. So I think that a lot of science is interdisciplinary. And sometimes we have to think of who is not at the table or what perspective is not being brought in. And maybe that's my default as a health disparities researcher. I think what am I missing? So I guess I have deference for my own knowledge. And so it tends to be that I go to the literature and I see what people are thinking about, but maybe what colleagues in different silos are looking at and how I can bridge that gap. So, you know, I think that is something that has happened many times throughout my career is that I look at what another discipline or approach or friends in that way. And in fact, it's not just science. Sometimes I think about how humanities and social scientists view problems and whether its in salons and cafes and the way they exchange ideas and that generates energy. So I'm a high extrovert so I very much enjoy group discussions and that really gets my juices going. So that's my process.   Oliver Bogler That's really interesting. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, so I mean, you really connect with all kinds of different inputs to try and, I guess, I don't know what the right word is, but you kind of take a bigger perspective rather than always being in the details where I'm sure you are when you're doing your analysis and things like that. And of course you do all kinds of other things. And I want to just touch on one of those right now. You've also co-authored two books. One called “What Inclusive Instructors Do? Principles and Practices for Excellence in College Teaching”. And more recently “Enhanc

In this episode, we get insights from three guests - Dr. Brigitte Widemann, Chief of the Pediatric Oncology Branch (POB) and Special Advisor to the NCI Director for Childhood Cancer, Dr. Andrea Gross, an Assistant Research Physician, and Sneh Patel, a Postbac Fellow in the Pediatric Oncology Branch within NCI’s Center for Cancer Research. They share their perspectives on the unique challenges faced in treating pediatric cancers and why research on pediatric oncology is crucial for the overall treatment of the patient. They also emphasize the importance of collaboration and the role of patients and advocacy groups. They also share their career journey and advice for aspiring physician-scientists, and much more!   Show Notes:   ·      Brigitte C. Widemann, M.D. ·      Andrea M. Gross, M.D. ·      Sneh Patel ·      NCI Pediatric Oncology Branch (POB) ·      NIH Clinical Center ·      My Pediatric and Adult Rare Tumor (MyPART) Network ·      Cancer Moonshot ·      Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI)   Ad: NCI Rising Scholars: Cancer Research Seminar Series   Your Turn Recommendations ·      Ologies: Ask Smart People Stupid Questions ·      The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness by Dr. Jerome Groopman ·      OncoDaily.com   TRANSCRIPT Oliver Bogler Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute, where we explore all the different ways people fight cancer and hear their stories. I'm your host, Oliver Bogler  from NCI's Center for Cancer Training. Today, we're talking about research on pediatric cancers and about combining medicine and research to make advances against these devastating diseases. Listen through to the end of the show to hear our guests make some interesting recommendations and where we invite you to take your turn.   So it's my pleasure to welcome Dr. Brigitte Widemann, Chief of the Pediatric Oncology Branch in the Center for Cancer Research at the National Cancer Institute. She's also the head of the Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics Section and serves as special advisor to the NCI Director for Childhood Cancer. Welcome.   Brigitte Widemann Thank you. It's great to be here.   Oliver Bogler I'm also very excited to welcome two members of Dr. Wiedemann's research team, Dr. Andrea Gross, former heme/onc fellow, now assistant research physician in the Pediatric Oncology Branch. Welcome.   Andrea Gross Thank you.   Oliver Bogler And Sneh Patel, who is currently doing a post-bac and is also on the research team in pediatric oncology. Welcome.   Sneh Patel Thank you for having me.   Oliver Bogler Dr. Widemann. Brigitte, what are some of the unique challenges in treating pediatric cancers compared to adult cancers and how does your team address these challenges?   Brigitte Widemann Thank you. I think the challenges are multiple -fold, but we also have made a lot of progress. One of the challenges is it's a very small patient population. It's about 1% of adult cancers. There are only around 15,000 or so cancers that occur in children and adolescents per year. Biologically, cancers in children are very different from adult cancers, but pharmaceutical companies focus on the common cancers and that makes drug development and new clinical trial sometimes very, very difficult. There are many different types of pediatric cancers, some where the progress has been tremendous and we have very high cure rates, but others where unfortunately the progress has been really lagging for the last two or three decades even, and in particular for pediatric and young adult cancer patients that have metastatic disease that has spread or that have disease that has come back after frontline treatment. At the NIH, we work in a space where we focus on areas that may not be done by the big cooperative groups. We want to complement and synergize, and we very much build on developing intramural - extramural collaborations. And the last point I want to make, we have the wonderful NIH Clinical Center where we can bring patients from anywhere in the world. And that has been a very unique resource to study some of the very rare cancers that would be difficult to study elsewhere.   Oliver Bogler Yeah, and you mentioned the Clinical Center. So there's quite a lot of history there, right? In fact, some of the earliest breakthroughs in chemotherapy and combination chemotherapy at the clinical center in the middle of last century was made in pediatric diseases, right?   Brigitte Widemann Absolutely, absolutely. And including leukemias. And for me, one of the big learning lessons was the researchers that then treated young kids with leukemia, they were destined to die. They used combinatorial approaches and people said, you are killing these patients with the treatment. But this was what led to combinatorial therapy, which is a lesson I always try to think of because I'm more an incrementalist. Sometimes we have to think big and be brave.   Oliver Bogler So that work is still influencing the way the Pediatric Oncology Branch does its research today?   Brigitte Widemann Yeah.   Oliver Bogler Dr. Gross, do you want to elaborate on that? Andrea, please.   Andrea Gross Just to add exactly what Brigitte said, that pediatric oncology is its own unique universe and absolutely the types of advances we've seen in the, especially in the leukemia world are the ones that we're hoping to see now in the solid tumor worlds, because, you know, as Brigitte mentioned a little bit, the survival rate for pediatric leukemia when they first started doing those studies that you mentioned was very, very low, almost zero. And now the overall survival rate for all comers of pediatric leukemias over 80%, which obviously isn't perfect and we want to do better, but it's amazing compared to what it was. Unfortunately, some of that same progress hasn't been seen in the solid tumor space where for patients with the metastatic or relapsed refractory solid tumors and sarcomas, the outcomes are much poorer in general. And so, you know, I think we're hoping with some of the exciting advances in the last decade or so with immunotherapies, cellular therapies.   many of which have been driven by work here at the Clinical Center and elsewhere to try to make progress in some of those more difficult tumors.   Oliver Bogler So why do you think that is? Why were leukemias more initially tractable to these sort of combinatorial approaches? And was that just lucky that people started with those diseases? If they'd started with the solid tumors, the successes would not have been the same, right?   Brigitte Widemann No, I don't think the successes would have been the same. And we actually tried to adapt what was done in leukemia with high doses and multi-agent chemotherapy. We've made progress in solid tumors, but the one tumor that one could highlight, neuroblastoma, where we give multi-agent chemotherapy to stem cell transplants and radiation and surgery, it is a boatload of very toxic treatment and still the rates of survival are’nt nearly as good. And I think it's the biology of the disease that is different, but also getting access to the sites of disease is a very important question. One of the reasons, maybe brain tumors in particular, we haven't made much progress. So I think understanding the basic science and the biology and then using this to develop innovative treatments, it's a key component. But yes, you're right, Oliver.   Andrea Gross You're talking to a couple of people who are focused on the solid tumor space, you know I think from the leukemia side, one of the big advantages they have is they can look at their tumor all throughout the course of treatment. It's much easier to access a piece of the tumor. You can get it from blood, from bone marrow, to really see what's happening at every stage of treatment. And they've been able to use that knowledge and learn about the biology of what happens in response to treatment, what's happening in resistance.   With solid tumors, that becomes much trickier because you have to do a biopsy, which is often an invasive procedure. And until recent years, honestly, unless it was for clinical diagnostic purposes, we often didn't do research biopsies for children because it was considered not necessary. But I think there's been a real shift in the understanding of how important getting an understanding of that basic biology is. And so even when there might not be a direct clinical indication having, for patients who are on research protocols, regular biopsies at the time of progression or on treatment so we can really get a better sense of the biology of what's happening is something that I think is going to be more and more important and maybe one of the reasons the leukemia side has been able to make more progress than the solid tumor side.   Oliver Bogler You can close the loop between what you're doing clinically and the response in the biology more quickly. So, Sneh, let me turn to you. You are doing more foundational research and investigation on these tumors, and I think you're focusing on NF1. Can you tell us what is NF1 and what's the focus of your work?   Sneh Patel Yes. So NF1, which is neurofibromatosis type 1, is a cancer predisposition syndrome that affects about one in 3,000 to one in 5,000 children in the U.S. And it is a disease that is caused due to a dysfunction of this gene called NF1 that leads to the overactivation of this specific pathway that causes these solid tumors to grow. NF1 has been characterized by a spectrum of benign tumors to the really aggressive malignant peripheral nerve chief tumors, MPNST, which are the highly aggressive sarcomas, which have really low survival rates. Dr. Gross and Dr. Widemann are experts in NF1 along with the team that we have here at the NIH, but it's a disease that we've been working on and I've been doing some clinical research to understand the spectrum of these tumors and understand th

In this episode, we hear from Dr. Jennifer Couch, Chief of the Biophysics, Bioengineering, and Computational Sciences Branch in NCI's Division of Cancer Biology, and Dr. Manu Platt, Director of the Center for Biomedical Engineering Technology Acceleration at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. They discuss the importance of integrating physical sciences, biology, and engineering in research. They highlight the benefits of collaboration and the formation of transdisciplinary teams. Drs. Couch and Platt also offer advice to those interested in pursuing a career in science and those who are early in their research careers. You can expect to learn all this and much more!   Show Notes:   Jennifer Couch, Ph.D. Biophysics, Bioengineering, and Computational Sciences Branch NCI Division of Cancer Biology Manu Platt, Ph.D. Center for Biomedical Engineering Technology Acceleration (BETA Center) National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NBIB) Physical Sciences - Oncology Network (PS-ON) NIH Clinical Center NIH Peer Review NIH Intramural Research Program Forum to Advance Minorities in Engineering, Inc. (FAME Inc.)   Ad - NanCI by NCI mobile application   You Turn Recommendations: ·      NCI Cancer AI Conversations ·      The Importance of Stupidity in Scientific Research by Martin A. Schwartz ·      Do It Now by Steve Pavlina ·      The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins   TRANSCRIPT Oliver Bogler Hello, and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute, where we explore all the different ways people fight cancer and hear their stories. I'm your host, Oliver Bogler, from NCI's Center for Cancer Training. There's ample evidence in the history of science that connecting across fields can stimulate innovation and produce advances. One fruitful connection has been between biology and the physical sciences and engineering. And today we are talking to two leaders at NIH involved in this work.   Listen through to the end of the show to hear our guests make some interesting recommendations and where we invite you to take your turn.   With us is Dr. Jennifer Couch, Chief of the Biophysics, Bioengineering, and Computational Sciences Branch in the Division of Cancer Biology at NCI. Welcome.   Jennifer Couch Hi Oliver, thanks for inviting me.   Oliver Bogler I'd also like to welcome Dr. Manu Platt, Director of the Biomedical Engineering Technology Acceleration or BETA Center at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. Welcome.   Manu Platt Great to be here with you.   Oliver Bogler Let me start with the question of why and how different disciplines in STEMM can be brought together to accelerate progress. Jennifer, what are the strategies and goals of your branch and how do you accomplish them?   Jennifer Couch Well, I think, you know, one of the key things about cancer is that it's complicated, it's multi -scale, it's impacted in many different ways and it has impacts on the body at many different levels. And so for that reason, I think cancer researchers are often adopters of new technologies and collaborate broadly. And we've seen over the past, you know, many decades that bringing physical sciences approaches and tools and  thinking into the cancer research space can really enhance the way that we address and develop ways to understand the basic mechanisms that underlie cancer initiation and progression and the way that it responds to therapies.   Oliver Bogler So one of the programs in your branch is called the Physical Sciences Oncology Network, or PSON, I think people call it. Tell us about that.   Jennifer Couch Yup.   Oliver Bogler What does it do?   Jennifer Couch So the Physical Sciences and Oncology Network has been around for about 15 years now, and it brings together explicitly partnerships between physical scientists, people with physical sciences expertise, and cancer research to address a broad range of cancer research questions, challenging things like spatial temporal dynamics and multi -scale effects of cancer, thinking about it through a physical sciences lens. And so all of the projects are collaborations between cancer researchers and people with these other expertise areas.   Oliver Bogler Have you got some examples for us of what kind of physical sciences are brought together with what kinds of biology to try and work together on the cancer problem?   Jennifer Couch Sure. So, we know a lot about the way that cancer develops and, and progresses at the molecular level. But one of the things that's been a real challenge is understanding the kind of mechanical forces involved in the way that cancer both initiates and progresses throughout the body and, um, when it metastasizes and whether or not those metastases survive in the new environment. And a lot of that has to do with the interplay between mechanical forces and molecular signaling. And so physical sciences have been key to both mathematically and computational and modeling those processes, but also developing the tools that we need to actually measure things like stiffness and fluid flow and adhesion strength and under different conditions, really designing the systems that we need to test out those hypotheses.   Oliver Bogler So the scientists you're bringing together probably have somewhat different languages, scientific languages, I mean. They have maybe slightly different mental models of how things work, right? I mean, I grew up in a very reductionist and deterministic age of biology that is slowly fading away into, you know, to be replaced by a more systems level and chaotic view of how it works. How does that manifest itself in the work that these different groups of scientists do together?   Jennifer Couch Yeah, you know, collaboration is really the key. And I think you said something critical here, which is that we're moving away in cancer biology, I think, from that reductionist view into thinking about a more integrated systems kind of approach. Again, this multi-scale phenomenon, the way that different scales impact emergent properties, all of those things. And when people trained in the physical sciences and engineering come together with cancer researchers, the way that they speak about a problem is often different in the way that they think about approaching it and the timeline, right? So for example, biology can be expensive. Doing experiments isn't trivial to do over and over again in the way that perhaps a physicist or a statistician might want. And so often they have to spend some time sort of understanding each other's, not just language and jargon, but approach to answering a question. But when they do that, when they walk… when they go through those, that difficult, conversation with each other they can really approach a problem in a way that they can't do separately.   Oliver Bogler And just for the sake of our audience, Jennifer, your branch is what we call extramural, right? So it works primarily by funding research that goes on outside the NCI, outside the NIH, across the country, right?   Jennifer Couch Yeah, and in fact entirely. So we support fundamental technology development and resource development that develops the tools and the approaches and the methods that cancer researchers will then adopt and use to answer research questions. And that's done almost entirely through extramural research grants through a variety of different mechanisms. The physical sciences program that you mentioned is one critical program, but we get a lot of our projects through what we call investigator-initiated research. That's just the standard way that NIH solicits and supports research.   Oliver Bogler That's when a research team out in the community has a good idea and they put in a grant just of their own accord to compete for funding, right?   Jennifer Couch Yeah, and I would say, you know, for teams like this that where physical scientists and biologists might be coming together, that's particularly challenging to sort of think about how peer review will handle those projects and how to think about sort of selling it, if you will, right, to a group of your peers that might be a combined group of physicists and biologists. And so talking to one of us in my branch or across the NIH is always a good idea ahead of time, just to get a sense of how peer review might react to a different project and of a different scope and that sort of thing, or whether we might have a specific funding opportunity that suits the project that they're considering.   Oliver Bogler Dr. Platt, Manu, you're leading a new initiative at the NIBIB, which has a role across the NIH, the BETA Center. What is that all about? Please tell us.   Manu Platt Great question. No, so we are an NIH-wide center. We're housed in NIBIB. And one thing that's great about my institute is we are disease agnostic, right? We help develop technology tools that can be used to cause health medicine and even basic research. So in that way, that's what allows us to reach out to investigators all across the NIH. And I'm in the Intramural Research Program. I have a research lab here that I moved here last year, about a year ago now.   And so what we are doing is first finding the engineers and biomedical engineers that are in all of the other institutes because they're out there helping to bring them together to build communities, but also so that we can share the tools that we are using, the principles that we're applying so that bring in other clinicians and basic science researchers into kind of lowering those barriers so they can use the tools as well.   Oliver Bogler So you mentioned that you're in the intramural program. That is the program that lives within the NIH. Each of our institutes and centers, or the majority of them, have their own research teams. Some people say that the kind of research that the intramural program does has some distinctions from what is more common ext

In this episode, Dr. Chanelle Case Borden, an Associate Director of Training Programs in the NCI Center for Cancer Training, Office of Training and Education, interviews Ms. Sigourney Bonner, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge and CEO of Black in Cancer. They discuss the mission of Black in Cancer, which aims to increase the number of Black cancer researchers, provide visibility for them, and bring awareness about cancer to the community. Ms. Bonner emphasize the global impact of Black in Cancer, highlighting that the organization is not limited to the UK or US. The upcoming Black in Cancer Conference is discussed, along with opportunities for individuals to get involved with the organization. Ms. Bonner shares her career journey, interest in science, experience in industry, and much more.    Show Notes:  Sigourney Bonner  Chanelle Case Borden, Ph.D.  Center for Cancer Training   Black in Cancer  2024 Black in Cancer Conference    Ad: NanCI by NCI mobile application    Cancer Research UK (CRUK)   CRUK Black Leaders in Cancer PhD Scholarship Programme  Paula Hammond, Ph.D.      Your Turn Recommendations:  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot  The Basement with Tim Ross Podcast  Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less by Tiffany Dufu     TRANSCRIPT [MUSIC] Oliver Bogler:   Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers. Before we get to the episode – a quick announcement. In the conversation between my colleague Chanelle Case Borden and our guest Sigourney Bonner you will hear about the Black in Cancer Conference which will be held at NIH in June 2024. At the time we recorded the interview a couple of weeks ago, the registration for this in-person event was still open, but in the meantime due to overwhelming support, it is at capacity and registration is now closed. You can join the waitlist – find the link on the Black in Cancer website. Now, let’s listen to the interview.    Chanelle Case Borden:  Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute where we will explore all the different ways people fight cancer and hear their stories. I am your host, Chanelle Case Borden from NCI Center for Cancer Training. Today we are talking to Sigourney Bonner, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge and CEO of Black in Cancer. Listen through the end of the show to hear our guests make an interesting recommendation and where we invite you to take your turn.    Sigourney, for those listeners who may be unfamiliar with the organization, can you tell us a little bit more about Black in Cancer?    Sigourney Bonner:  Sure. So we started in the summer of 2020 as a result of a number of things, but we don't have to mention that there was lots of social justice movement during that time. But really it was an opportunity to bring together community. So when I started my PhD, I didn't know anybody who was a Black woman who'd done a PhD.    And that visibility piece was really important to me. So in the midst of that, I was looking for community. I found my co-founder via Twitter and we connected and just had a really big chat about what it meant to be Black and a cancer researcher and kind of found that it was twofold. So there was the visibility piece in finding it difficult to find people to aspire to. But on the other side, it was being this font of knowledge for our community and having, you know, our parents or our friends be like, “oh, my uncle's brother's sister's got breast cancer. What should I do?” And I'm like, “I don't know. I work in children's brain tumors”. So wanting to bring a community together that meant I did have the resource to be able to point them in the right direction and give them the right information. I really, that's what we do. So we're twofold increasing the number of Black cancer researchers and providing them visibility, but also bringing awareness about cancer to the community so they can be informed and empowered about their healthcare decisions.    Chanelle Case Borden:   That's wonderful. I remember being in a very similar position myself. So my inspiration and wanting to be a PhD scientist was actually as a result of two white women, which is excellent mentorship. I thank them, I think that I had them in my life. But to your point, there was no one that looked like me that I could really point to. And I think things might have gone a little bit differently if I had that resource. So I think having an organization like Black Cancer is a wonderful resource for scientists going through their journeys now. So can you talk a little bit more about the UK and US connection? I think some people think that it's only in the UK. So can you tell us a little bit about how that works? So its really an international organization.    Sigourney Bonner:  Yeah, so we've always, I guess, wanted to make sure that we could spread the information as widely as possible. When we started, my co-founder, Henry, actually was a postdoc at Vanderbilt, and we were just talking about how similar experiences we had, you know, being different genders and across an ocean. And it was therefore a global issue. So we didn't want to start in one place and assume that all of the issues only occurred in one place. We speak so much and there's so much known about disparities, particularly when it comes to cancer within the US. But actually we don't talk about it a lot in the UK. And there's an assumption that because we have a national health service that it's equitable care. And actually a lot of work coming out is saying that that's not the case. So what we wanted to do is to continue to highlight that as a global issue and not just as a one place or another issue because they're things that we can cross-link and do in both places that will impact both communities.     So yeah, that was what we really wanted to do. So we've been growing. We've had, so most of our programs occur across the US and the UK, but actually people who've come to our conference, as well as people who connect with us, people who work as part of our board of directors and our volunteers, are very international. So Canadians, people from the Netherlands, from across a number of African nations. We've had people connect with us from Australia and Brazil. It's really, really broad and shows that these issues of visibility or whether that's information about cancer that it's not just limited, it's really a global issue.    Chanelle Case Borden:   I’m surprised but at the same time not surprised. Yeah, so speaking about the conference, there is a Black in Cancer Conference happening and it's happening right here at the National Institutes of Health this summer. So will you tell us a little bit more about what attendees can expect if they choose to participate?    Sigourney Bonner:  Yeah, sure. So what we wanted to do was we had a conference last in October of 2022, and we wanted to continue that work. But, you know, our next step is always how can we do it bigger? How can we do it better? So our next step was to see if we could move it to the US because we didn't want it to just be a UK thing and have this incredible collaboration with the Frederick National Lab and working with NCI, which is absolutely incredible.    So what we've really been doing the last few months, actually over the last year has been putting together this program of incredible researchers who were doing brilliant work in a number of different areas, but who are really pushing innovation and the forefronts of science for cancer patients. But we also never want to forget those that we're working for. So we also have patient advocates involved in what we do and they'll be speaking at the conference about their experiences.    So, pushing for more research within particular areas that particularly impact Black communities, whether that's thinking about things like triple negative breast cancer and the difference in diagnosis rates with those from the Black women and that community. So really just pulling together all of these incredible researchers, allowing them to network and really providing a space where no one can say.    “Oh, well, I didn't think that there was anybody who was Black, who was in this space. Otherwise, we would have brought them in for this panel or we would have invited them for this interview” or whatever it's like. They're here. They're thriving. They're doing brilliantly. We're providing visibility for them and really just a space where they can feel a sense of belonging more than anything.    Chanelle Case Borden:  Yeah, that's amazing. I think that awareness is really key and I'm actually really looking forward to being in a room like that. So are there other opportunities for folks who might be interested in Black in Cancer to get involved, maybe for the conference, but maybe just for the organization itself?    Sigourney Bonner:  Yeah, absolutely. So there is room for everyone. We have more things to do than we have hands being able to do them. So I guess this is a moment where I really want to shout out to our board and our volunteers, because all of this stuff that you see happening is actually from a really small set of really, really dedicated people who all have full-time jobs.    So whether they are early career researchers, just starting academic careers or just starting industry careers or PhDs like I am, or working in their outside of work hours, which as many people know, PhD hours don't really exist anyway.     Chanelle Case Borden:  Not at all.    Sigourney Bonner:  So, are doing all of that incredible work to keep the organization moving, to keep our mentorship program going, to support our PhD students that are now in their second year and we've got another cohort starting. So yeah, just a huge shout out to them. And also w

In this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, we hear from Dr. Ophira Ginsburg, Senior Scientific Officer and Senior Advisor for Clinical Research in NCI’s Center for Global Health. Dr. Ginsburg discusses the published article Women, power, and cancer: a Lancet Commission, which focuses on the social determinants of health and the power dynamics that affect women's access to cancer care. She shares the commission's key findings, which highlight the high incidence of cancer in women and the potential for prevention and early detection to save lives. Dr. Ginsburg gives her thoughts on the importance of women's leadership and representation in cancer care and provides recommendations for creating a gender-equitable cancer care system. She then discusses her career path and offers advice for those interested in pursuing a career in global oncology.   Show Notes:   Ophira Ginsburg, M.D., M.Sc. NCI Center for Global Health Women, power, and cancer: Lancet Commission   Ad: NCI Cancer Data Science Training   World Health Organization (WHO) WHO Cervical Cancer Elimination Initiative WHO Guide to Cancer Early Diagnosis NYU Department of Population Health Royal Society of Medicine London Global Cancer Week African Organization of Research and Training in Cancer (AORTIC)   Your Turn Recommendations: Ikigai Book: Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh Podcast: Night Science with Dr. Itai Yanai and Dr. Martin Lercher   TRANSCRIPT Oliver Bogler Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute. I'm your host, Oliver Bogler. I work at the NCI in the Center for Cancer Training. On Inside Cancer Careers, we explore all the different ways that people join the fight against disease and we hear their stories. Today, we're talking with Dr. Ophira Ginsburg, Senior Advisor for Clinical Research in NCI Center for Global Health and leader of a recent Lancet Commission on Women, Power and Cancer. Listen through to the end of the show to hear her make some interesting recommendations and where we will invite you to take your turn.   Dr. Ginsburg, Ophira, welcome.   Ophira Ginsburg Thank you so much.   Oliver Bogler So you've done a lot of things in global health, but I wanna start with one particular recent initiative that you led, which is this commission for the medical journal Lancet. And the commission was called on Women, Power and Cancer. It sounds like a lot more than simply looking at the incidence of cancer in women, for example. Why “power”?   Ophira Ginsburg Yeah, it's a great question. And thanks so much for having me on the show. I guess I'll start by setting it up with a previous series we did in the Lancet. It was a three-part article, mostly reviews, with some recommendations called Health, Equity, and Women's Cancers, which I had the good fortune to lead with a 40, a compliment, 40 authors from 18 countries. We published online in 2016, in print 2017, when I was at WHO, actually, as a medical officer. Circle back to that if it's of interest. At that time we focused just on breast and cervical cancer, and we did try to dig in a little bit into the social determinants of health that we all thought were influencing, and of course there's enough evidence, there's more than enough evidence to support that we have much more to do to close this gap and reduce cancer health disparities for women at the national level and of course at the global level. Several years later we hadn't really progressed as far as we had hoped to. And I had a conversation with Richard Horton, as you know, the editor-in-chief of The Lancet in London 2019 just before the pandemic hit, and he asked me what did I think of progress. And I could say something about the emerging efforts on breast cancer, now part of the global breast cancer initiative at WHO and cervical cancer, of course, the elimination strategy that many of your listeners, I hope, are aware of. But we really still hadn't cracked through that barrier, that global barrier that seems to affect women in every setting and not just with respect to access to care, access to prevention when it comes to cervical cancer, let's say girls getting vaccinated and women getting screened, et cetera. So we kind of stepped back and looked at what is the big picture here?   And if I might just draw on my own career point, when I was doing more hands-on global health work, I co-founded a small breast clinic, breast cancer center in rural Bangladesh, and women were coming in with these large, fungating masses, for those who are clinicians, you'll know what I mean, for those who aren't, just desperate situation of terribly advanced cancer, the likes of which you see maybe once a year or never really. This was sort of the norm. And we started asking these women, and I was working with qualitative researchers, why did you come so late? First of all, it's a really loaded question, right? It places the blame on the woman. And also without asking, we really made wrong assumptions. So understanding the power dynamics within their families and within society led them to say to us “We're making a choice. I can't make this choice. I have no choice but to have used the little bit of money I had to spend on school books and uniforms for the kids”. “I'm not the person who decides on my own healthcare”, they would say in some other way, which is typical in that particular setting in the South Asian conservative community, that it's the mothers-in-law and mostly the husbands, fear of being ostracized, fear … anyway.   I'm going on and on, but to say the element of power dynamics and patriarchal systems as they pertain to opportunities for equitable, high-quality, respectful care for people with cancer as well as other elements we can talk about really spoke to me. And when we started the commission, the concept note I wrote and shared with Richard Horton and then to the editorial board, there's a process for how these commissions come about. And then eventually started inviting people to join me - we saw that power was really central. And the name of the report eventually became not Women and Cancer, but ‘Women, Power and Cancer’. That by the way is inclusive of women as healthcare providers, as well as people with lived experience of cancer.   Oliver Bogler So would you then say that power is a new social determinant of health? Is that a fair comment?   Ophira Ginsburg You know, that's a terrific question. And I think you're the first person to ask me this. All the interviews we've had since the report came out. I don't know that we're inventing it. It certainly is an element that is discussed in other domains, but I haven't seen it, what's the word I'm looking for?   Oliver Bogler Explicitly called out or…   Ophira Ginsburg Yeah, I haven't seen it really framed in terms of cancer with one exception. And I should mention her. When we did the series, there were a couple of commentaries. One was by our colleagues at the American Cancer Society. This was the series, Health Equity in Women's Cancers that I referred to. And the other was by then president of Chile, Dr. Michelle Bachelet, co-founder of UN Women, who went on the next year after that to become the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She wrote an editorial about our series and she called it  . So there you go. We can't own it. That's the great legendary former president, Dr. Bachelet.   Oliver Bogler So what are the key findings that you published in this commission report?   Ophira Ginsburg Right, so first what we set out to do was to look at power in three domains, in knowledge, decision making, and economics. So we had our working groups. The first working group really was the one I was attached to as a scientist working with our colleagues at IARC and others on the burden. So one of the main quantitative findings was that cancer ranks in the top three causes of premature mortality - death under 70 - for women in every country except two. That's out of 185 countries. It's rather mystifying that more people don't know this and in fact we weren't really aware the degree to which cancer ranks in that few top causes of death under the age of 70 and so what does that mean for the society, what does that mean for the children of these mothers etc. especially when they when they die, when they still have young children. So that was a key point.   And when we broke it down by country, we saw there were huge differences depending on where you lived, the degree to which cancer deaths are premature, right? Largely because population structure and other factors, but also different types of cancer that are more or less prevalent according to geography and also income level and what's called the Human Development Index. And so the other thing we broke down was of the 2.3 million women who died in 2020 prematurely of cancer, 1.3 million women's lives could have been saved if they had appropriate access to what we already know works in terms of prevention and early detection. And another 800,000 women could have been spared death prematurely under the age of 70 if every woman diagnosed with cancer of any kind, right? All taken together had access to the optimal care. These are really important data points. That's just a couple of the quantitative findings. I'll stop there for a second.   Oliver Bogler Yeah, that's fascinating. So I mean, the problems you're describing seem, to someone like myself who's not in global health, quite overwhelming. You know, the infrastructure, the socioeconomic circumstances. So does the report also have ideas on how these challenges can be tackled?   Ophira Ginsburg Absolutely. So the point of these reports is not just to highlight a problem, which would be horribly depressing for all of us. And I mean, there's enough other ways to express and analyze and publish on such a paper. You know, many papers could have come out of this work. But to do