2023 DCB Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) Conference
During the DCB Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP), rising junior and senior college students with limited prior research experience gained hands-on knowledge in interdisciplinary cancer biology across 16 academic institutions. Each student worked with a faculty mentor who uses multi-disciplinary approaches to study cancer.
On July 13 and 14, 2023, the SURP students traveled to the NIH campus for a scientific conference, where they shared their summer research and networked with members of the cancer research community. The meeting included a scientific poster session, career mentorship keynote talks, a tour of the NIH Clinical Center, and opportunities for the students to meet with each other, patient advocates, and NCI staff.
Documents from the Conference
Videos of SURP Summer Researchers at the Conference
- Jacob Hogan presented a poster on "Human Lifespan if Cancer Was Not a Cause of Death." This work is related to his summer research with Dr. Fred Adler at the University of Utah, which is combining the roles of genetics, environment, and cell ecology in mathematical models to help us understand the age at which people get cancer.
- Saanika Mahashetty showed ovarian cancer cell interactions with a mesothelial barrier in a 3D culture model. Her findings are related to her summer research investigating the early steps of ovarian cancer metastasis with Dr. Ioannis Zervantonakis at the University of Pittsburgh.
- Sai Manikonda shared the identification of spatial domains in pancreatic cancer from spatial transcriptomics. This research is related to his summer project with Dr. Versteinn Thorssen at the Institute for Systems Biology, which is focusing on spatial determinants of response and resistance to combination immunotherapy.
Poster Session at the Conference
During the poster session at the SURP conference, summer undergraduate researchers presented their cancer biology research. Here are a few examples of the presentations:
Fengyuan Wang shared the spatiotemporal profiling of the tumor microenvironment for the identification of crosstalk targets in brain metastasis.
Erin Coyne showed how she is developing a computational model using genetic sequencing data from tumors to discover effective combination therapies for cancer.
Ethan Cohen showed how he is using neural networks to discover gene vulberability patterns in childhood cancer.
Social Media Related to 2023 SURP
Social media posts related to SURP can be found using #DCBSURP23 (on Twitter and LinkedIN).
DCB Contacts for SURP
For additional information about the SURP conference and program, please contact Dr. Shannon Hughes and Tiffany Ferguson.