NCI Hosts Summer Undergrad Research Interns
The National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Biology hosted 19 students from across the country for an Undergraduate Research Conference recently.
The students were completing cancer research internships at grantee institutions who are members of the division’s Cancer Systems Biology Consortium and Physical Sciences in Oncology Network.
The interns were supported by the Undergraduate Summer Research Program, which provides a stipend to conduct research in the interdisciplinary fields of cancer systems biology or physical oncology.
While the students spent most of the summer in a lab conducting research on topics such as tumor heterogeneity, tumor-immune interactions, evolution of phenotypes in late-stage cancer and cell migration’s role in cancer invasion and metastasis, the in-person meeting on campus gave the students the opportunity to meet and teach one another about the diverse set of projects and disciplines that are studied by investigators.
The conference also included a collaborative activity based on the Sage Bionetworks-DREAM Breast Cancer Prognosis Challenge, a tour of the Clinical Center and the opportunity to meet and learn from the Georgetown Breast Cancer Advocates, a group of breast cancer survivors whose lives are a testament to the importance of cancer research.
The students also had a chance to meet scientists and present their work via a poster session to fellow interns, researchers and NCI staff.
Now in its 10th year, the Summer Undergraduate Research Program has supported more than 110 undergraduate students to explore experimental and computational research in interdisciplinary fields. The program serves as a nationwide resource for the benefit of the entire cancer biology research community by encouraging future researchers to pursue collaborative, multi-disciplinary approaches to complex problems.