Jeanne Kowalski-Muegge https://dellmed.utexas.edu/directory/jeanne-kowalski-muegge and Lynda Gonzales https://cns.utexas.edu/directory/lynda-gonzales inform about the upcoming Cancer Genomics SPRINT. A first event of its kind hosted by the Livestrong Cancer Institutes.
Guests
Jeanne Kowalski-MueggeAssociate Director of Cancer Clinical Genomics at the Livestrong Cancer Institutes
Hosts
Ginger M. Okoro, MPAManager at LCI, Department of Oncology at the Dell Medical School
Intro: [00:00:00] We are a resource for learners, including every member of the live strong cancer institutes track educational pipeline middle school to residency, we are a growing collection of interviews, talks and experiences, that uncover the myths and the uncertainties of cancer and careers in cancer in order to empower and inspire generations of thinkers and leaders.
This is Cancer Uncovered. An education and empowerment podcast by the Livestrong cancer institutes.
[00:01:00]
Jeanne Kowalski: Thanks Ginger, for the opportunity to really get out the word. That we will be doing a first ever live strong cancer Institute’s science sprint at ut. We’re very excited about this opportunity. I am Jeanie Kowalski-Muegge. I’m a professor of oncology at Dell Medical School, an Associate Director for Cancer Clinical Genomics at live strong. One of the important roles that I do in that position is that I lead a molecular tumor board for live strong cancer institutes.
This is really important because we talk about information from genomic profiling to look at and discuss different treatment options. Linda, would you introduce yourself? [00:02:00]
Linda Gonzalez: Sure. Thanks for having me. I’m Linda Gonzalez, Director for Student Engagement and Outreach in the College of Natural Sciences.
And I’m really excited to work with you all on hosting the first ever Live Strong Cancer Institute Science SPRINT. Let me tell you a little bit about the sprint model.
Sprints are one day intensive events, bringing teams of undergraduates together to work on authentic, real world, meaningful issues in science. So these are full day immersive events. They’re intended to be fun and fast-paced, kind of like a hackathon environment, but minus all the competition. SPRINTS are focused on inclusivity and accessibility.
So we design these events so that all undergraduates can participate. You don’t have to have specific experiences or background or prerequisites. We want everyone to be able to show up and [00:03:00] contribute in a meaningful way on the day of the event. There’s an equal focus in the sprint on authentic problems and we certainly are asking the students to come up with real world solutions to these problems. But there’s really an equal focus on engaging students in the process of the exploration.
This is an educational experience with usable outcome. Sprints typically begin the day with the problem or a research question brought to us by faculty, researchers, industry experts, and others.
Jeanne Kowalski: Now that we know a little bit about what a Sprint is and Linda’s role as Director of Student engagement in helping to facilitate them, let’s talk a little bit about the upcoming sprint that we’re super excited about. In this Live strong sprint, there’s a unique opportunity that’ll be focused on using public domain data combined with real [00:04:00] world evidence to inform on what I call the who, meaning patients with molecular changes and the what.
What treatment in a case study on molecular targeted therapy and cancer. So we’re going focus again on the who, which patients might benefit the most from which treatment. In this particular format, what we’re going to do is we’re using patients that were referred to our molecular tumor board and we’re reevaluating them.
We’re looking at them from a different perspective. That is from the undergraduate student perspective. Similar to our molecular tumor board, I will provide resources and educate on fundamental concepts before the case study. We’re forming a undergraduate student molecular tumor board, and I think that this will be the first ever from any cancer center, and that is something that I plan on repeating the [00:05:00] process with sprints, and gaining some knowledge along the way.
Linda, can you tell us about the planning of this one?
Linda Gonzalez: Sure. Our sprint is planned for Saturday and the time of the sprint is 10:00 AM to about 4:00 PM in the afternoon.
We’ll host the Sprint on the UT campus. So there’s quite a bit of work that goes in ahead of time to planning these events. I look forward to being able to put the students in teams and, and they’ll have the opportunity to be creative and innovative for the day.
Jeanne Kowalski: We are very excited to tell a story from the molecular side of cancer patients in terms of what treatment might be working or not working and why, and learn about the resources that we dig into. We’re hoping is that through this sprint we are able to motivate the learning about [00:06:00] relevant cancer public domain databases. That’s really important and will be heavily used in this particular sprint as we try and dissect molecular results from cancer patients.
So thanks Linda, so much. Thank
Linda Gonzalez: you. We’re so excited to partner with you in the Live Strong Cancer Institute. Our students are going to gain so much valuable experience and exposure to this topic.
[00:07:00]