Symposium highlights SDSU’s wide-ranging cancer research enterprise
The half-day event brings together scientists, students, advocates, and community partners to discuss current and future work.
Cancer researchers, private sector executives, advocates and community organizations from across the San Diego region will gather for the SDSU Cancer Research Symposium to envision the future of cancer research at San Diego State University at 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 15, in the Parma Payne Goodall Alumni Center.
“Just as cancer encompasses biological complexity across hundreds of disease types, social challenges, and public health concerns, cancer research spans an equally vast and complex landscape,” said Parag Katira, SDSU professor of mechanical engineering and lead organizer of the event.
“From any researcher's vantage point, it's tough to see the full picture — you can get isolated in your specialization and miss parallel efforts or emerging innovations happening just over the horizon.”
Katira intends for the symposium to bring SDSU faculty together with industry and community partners to step back, see the bigger picture, and discover new collaborative pathways forward.
To that end, the event includes expert talks, poster presentations from student researchers and networking to foster connections across higher education, industry, health care, and nonprofit organizations.
Matt Giacalone, CEO of immunotherapy company Vaxiion Therapeutics, will deliver a keynote on how to foster innovative ideas to address unmet needs in cancer research and care, followed by Helen Palomino, CEO of the Cancer Resource Center of the Desert, who will share lessons for researchers from patients and community partners.
Both keynote speakers will be joined by SDSU cancer researchers and representatives from Merck and the American Cancer Society for a panel discussion on how to improve the pipeline from basic science discoveries through to clinical settings and patient experience. Panelists will also comment on how to best leverage SDSU’s transborder collaborations and strong ties with diverse communities for all stages of cancer research.
This event arose from multiple ongoing, cancer-adjacent interdisciplinary efforts among SDSU researchers such as the Cancer CoRe (Convergent Research) group, the ACCEL initiative, and the CREATE Partnership with UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, funded by grants from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health.
The Cancer Research and Education to Advance Health Excellence (CREATE) Partnership supports early-career researchers, funds pilot research projects, and prioritizes community engagement. Grant-funded partnership projects address breast cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, and pancreatic cancer.
The partnership’s flagship programs include training and paid positions for undergraduate, graduate and medical students to pursue careers in cancer research and health professions.
Undergraduate, master’s and Ph.D. students from both SDSU and UC San Diego who benefited from the CREATE and ACCEL programs will share posters, science fair style, on their latest findings. Topics include tumor vasculature; characterization of specific enzymes with roles in mutation and tumor formation; and the benefits of machine learning, vaccination, and community screenings for cancer prevention.
SDSU researchers have produced valuable insights across the continuum of cancer care. Katira and his collaborators have found that the stickiness of tumor cells predicts the likelihood of whether they move to other parts of the body. Physicists are determining the effects of radiation therapy techniques using 3D-printed tumors. At the community level, SDSU research has demonstrated the effectiveness of education for cervical cancer screenings in Lesotho and locally and shown that some patients see benefits of using cannabis to address their cancer symptoms.
To learn more about the future of these important discoveries, attendees from the SDSU and San Diego community are encouraged to participate in any part of the symposium.
