Roadmap for America's Cancer Explorers for the 21st Century (Race 21)

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Roadmap for America’s Cancer Explorers for the 21st Century (RACE21) is an interdisciplinary program to develop a pipeline to a diverse 21st century cancer research workforce. Cancer is a primary cause of adult mortalities in the US, despite excellent advances in understanding cancer biology and innovative treatments. In Alabama, cancer is the 2nd highest cause of mortality, and cancer death rates are almost double in Alabama’s African-American (compared to White) males. One of the underlying causes of this anomaly is the lack of communication about cancer among Africa-Americans, especially within families. Also, relatively few African-American youth are seeking careers in cancer research, largely due to very little exposure to cancer biology in most of their secondary schools and their teachers’ lack of cancer biology training. Further, few informal programs excite students about careers in cancer biology. RACE21 will build an innovative and effective pipeline to cancer research careers, especially for students underrepresented in cancer research (URM) by building on 5-basic foundations: 1) The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s (UAB) outstanding O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, 2) Over 200 cancer researchers, eager to mentor high school and college students to become the next generation of cancer researchers, 3) development of an innovative Undergraduate Cancer Biology Major, 4) the Center for Community OutReach Development (CORD), which will train high school biology teachers in cancer research and introduce advanced high school students to cancer research in both formal and informal settings and 5) training in communication about cancer. RACE21 employs successful methods developed at UAB, and uses them to advance cancer biology education. The pipeline starts with high school students being introduced to cancer biology through state-of-the-art experiences in the Summer Science Institute (10 URM rising seniors will be Summer Research Interns) and experiences at the GENEius lab. RACE21 will also provide intense cancer biology training to high school teachers via an annual 3-week BioTeach-Cancer training. RACE21 students (>80% URM) entering UAB’s new Cancer Biology Major will complete a paid summer internship in cancer research in their rising year 1 and 2, and in year 3 and 4 they will receive fellowships as cancer researchers. Each year 10 RACE21 students will complete the undergraduate major, with most continuing to graduate school in cancer research related areas. The Intellectual Merit of RACE21 will be in testing a pipeline that leads to increased minorities in cancer biology careers. The Broader Impacts will annually educate about 6,000 minority students, families and the public about cancer biology and launch the cancer research careers of >40 minority students.