Third Summer of Success for the UVA Comprehensive Cancer Center STRIVE Program

The UVA Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Short-Term Research Initiative for Visiting Educators (STRIVE) program enjoyed a third year of success this summer. The program invites professors from historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions to spend six weeks doing collaborative research with UVA Cancer Center faculty. The program works to establish relationships at institutions around the country, and while the effort is mainly research-focused it also supports our broader commitment to DEI. This year, the Cancer Center hosted Ruth Washington, PhD, of Lemoyne-Owen College, Lecia Robinson, PhD, of Tuskegee University, and Anathbandhu Chaudhuri, PhD, of Stillman College. They were sponsored by Andrew Dudley, PhD, Dave Kashatus, PhD, and Dan Gioeli, PhD, respectively. Dr Robinson was co-sponsored by the Systems Analysis of Stress-adapted Cancer Organelles (SASCO) Center. Benefits for all participating faculty include professional networking and collaborative, interdisciplinary research opportunities.

During their time at UVA, each STRIVE professor advanced their research agenda by leveraging their own expertise alongside that of their host faculty. Dr. Washington and Dr. Dudley studied the role of pericytes in the prostate cancer tumor microenvironment to better understand their role in tumorigenesis, while Dr. Robinson worked with SASCO and the Kashatus lab to better understand racial disparities in triple-negative breast cancer. Dr. Chaudhuri also pursued racial health disparities, but with a focus on histopathology and prostate cancer.

One of the main goals of the STRIVE program is to promote diversity, equity and inclusion at UVA and more broadly within cancer education, research, prevention and treatment. Accordingly, STRIVE faculty participated in several round table discussions and meetings with leaders in the School of Medicine, faculty and students. Discussions covered topics ranging from undergraduate and summer program admissions, access to core facilities and library services and deepening connections with minority-serving institutions.

For visiting faculty, access to UVA’s resources can aid funding and student training opportunities at their home institutions. Last year, Dr. Washington met Biomedical Engineering graduate student Yonathan Aberra and his advisor, Mete Civelek, PhD. Dr. Washington shared that her undergraduate students needed more exposure to cutting-edge research because of COVID-19 restrictions to lab access. Yonathan expressed a desire for more classroom teaching experience. Together, the trio developed a plan for Yonathan to teach programming and data analysis to undergraduate students at Lemoyne-Owen College remotely. The first session was so successful, Yonathan visited Lemoyne-Owen in person for a second lesson. We expect additional such collaborations next year as visiting faculty continue to give their undergraduate students opportunities to analyze samples and data gained at UVA.

A new addition to the STRIVE program this year is the Diversity in Cancer Research Internship (DICR), a ten-week residential research program for undergraduate students. Funded by the American Cancer Society and administered under UVA’s Summer Research Internship Program (SRIP), DICR allowed current and past STRIVE members to bring their students to UVA for intensive research training. The eight students in this program received cancer-related programming during the summer, including attending a tumor board and presentations by current Cancer Center members. We are very grateful to the Cancer Center labs that hosted them and the BIMS graduate students that acted as peer mentors. Their visit culminated in a presentation of their research, and the Cancer Center and their mentors plan to stay in touch over the coming year as a resource for their next steps.

STRIVE and DICR were organized by Lucy Pemberton, PhD, Associate Director for Training and Education for the Cancer Center, and Christos Baryiames, PhD, the CRTEC Coordinator. They collaborated with Cancer Center Associate Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Marquita Taylor, PhD, MPH, MBA, and the program was supplemented by UVA’s Systems Analysis of Stress-adapted Cancer Organelles Center (SASCO), and a Gilliam Fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Photo credit: Sonia Lyons

Filed Under: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Faculty, Research