The University of Illinois Cancer Center

Check out this video on the ResearcHStart program! ResearcHStart is a collaborative training program for high school students completing their junior or senior year, between the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois Cancer Center, Rush University, Northwestern University and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Students gain hands-on research experience, working in a UIC faculty lab on an independent project. Students will also attend workshops, lectures, and other activities focused on building research, professional and academic skills. At the end of the summer, students present their work during the Cancer Center’s student research symposium. Applications are due by January 20, 2025. https://bit.ly/4i5qwo3 #SummerProgram #CancerResearch

The 47th Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium features research from authors affiliated with the University of Illinois Cancer Center, University of Illinois Chicago and UI Health. The 2024 symposium takes place December 10 – 13. The symposium, co-sponsored by the UT Health San Antonio Mays Cancer Center and the American Association for Cancer Research, includes more than 10,000 registered attendees from 102 countries. Check out their featured research here: https://bit.ly/49vFiAu

The University of Illinois Cancer Center shared cancer information cards at the University of Illinois Chicago UIC Flames women's basketball home game December 8 when they defeated North Central College 113-53. The Cancer Center’s partnership with the Flames is an opportunity to share information about cancer awareness, prevention, screening and clinical trials with our community of students, faculty, staff, their friends and families, and sports fans at games. In September, the Cancer Center did cancer awareness and education outreach at two UIC soccer games. #CancerAwareness #cancerscreening #cancerprevention

University of Illinois Cancer Center member Keith Naylor, MD, who is part of the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program, presented a poster on his Illinois Cancer Health Equity Research (I-CHER) Center subaward project titled, “Unknown Family History of Cancer … What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You,” at the American Cancer Society (ACS) -Jiler Professors and Fellows Conference. A practicing gastroenterologist at UI Health, Naylor is one of the six subawardees of the I-CHER grant. Specifically, he is Principal Investigator on an ACS Clinician Scientist Development Grant seeking to improve cancer risk assessment and colorectal cancer screening among underserved populations through enhanced family history documentation. The I-CHER Center, which sits within the Cancer Center is made possible through funding from ACS and support from the Cancer Center. Other authors on the poster are Cancer Center Research Specialist Monét Jones, MPH, MSW, LSW; University of Illinois Diversity in Cancer Research (UI DICR) summer research undergraduate student Irann Martinez; College of Medicine Gastroenterology Fellow Daniel Ludi, MD; and Cancer Center member Masahito Jimbo, MD, PhD, MPH, FAAFP, Professor and Head of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the College of Medicine and a Family Medicine physician at UI Health. Read more here: https://bit.ly/3ZeL9Xi

Friday December 13th - UIC Physiology Seminar Series welcomes Alexandra Naba, PhD from UIC Chicago to present “Deciphering the Roles of the Extracellular Matrix in Health and Disease Using Proteomics."

As a member of the Board of Governors of the IOMC, I wish to extend personal thanks to Dr. Jan Kitajewski, Director of the Cancer Center UI Health for accepting his role as a panel member on the topic-"The Election is Over-What Does It Mean for Healthcare & Public Health?". The event was well attended from thought leaders of several health systems. Dr. K spoke about our journey for NCI designation and our uniqueness with the integration of an FQHC, Mile Square Health Center.

Congratulations to PhD students Dahee Jung, Xiaoying Cai and Monica Haughan for winning the University of Illinois Cancer Center Cancer Science Prizes for their posters during the 15th Annual Research Day at the UIC Retzky College of Pharmacy. Research Day brings together trainees, alumni, faculty members and staff, as well as industry and academic colleagues from the Chicagoland area. Jung and Cai earned the first-place $500 Cancer Science Prize for their poster, “Engineered Anti-CD40 Agonistic Antibody as a Novel Cancer Neoantigen Vaccines.” Poster authors included Lee and others from Purdue University. Haughan earned the second-place $250 Cancer Science Prize for her poster, “Adrenergic Signaling in Adipocytes Drives Ovarian Cancer Cell Invasion.” Poster authors included Burdette and others the University of California, Santa Cruz, the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Chicago and the University of Iowa Health Care Carver College of Medicine. Read more here: https://bit.ly/4eAs9H5 #CancerResearch #ResearchAward #OvarianCancer

Visit our table at the University of Illinois Chicago Athletics Women’s Basketball home game on Sunday, December 8, when they take on North Central College. The game starts at noon at Credit Union 1 Arena, 525 S. Racine Avenue in Chicago. The Cancer Center’s partnership with the Flames is an opportunity to share information about #cancerawareness, prevention, screening and clinical trials with our #community of students, faculty, staff, their friends and families, and sports fans at games. Read more here: https://bit.ly/4gdmJnn

The 66th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition showcases research from authors affiliated with the University of Illinois Cancer Center, the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) and UI Health, UIC’s academic health enterprise. ASH will be held December 7–10 in San Diego, California. Click the link below to view a list of their featured work: https://bit.ly/496GZ7c

Registration is open for the University of Illinois Cancer Center’s second annual Winter #CME Series. The three-part series starts January 15, is followed by a second session January 22, and then wraps up with a final session January 29. Each session day has a different cancer focus, and attendees can earn up to three hours of CME per session. The series is accredited by Global Education Group. All three sessions will be held at Morgan’s on Fulton, 950 W. Fulton Market, in Chicago. January 15 – Hematologic Malignancies January 22 – Women and Genitourinary (GU) Cancers January 29 – Emerging Paradigms in the Management of Oncology Patients The target audience for this CME series includes medical oncologists, hematologists, pathologists, oncology nurses, fellows, residents, advanced practice providers, family practitioners, primary care practitioners, allied health professionals and other providers interested in the care of patients with cancer. The CME Series Course Chair is Cancer Center member Matías E. Sánchez, MD, who specializes in treating patients with different blood cancers at UI Health and is also Assistant Professor in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Medicine Chicago. Faculty session presenters include Cancer Center members, University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) faculty and UI Health cancer specialists, along with others from Rush University, the John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, University of Chicago and The Ohio State University. The University of Illinois Cancer Center is part of UI Health, the academic health system at UIC. Register Here: https://bit.ly/48QT6Fd