Shaw University-University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Undergraduate Program in Prostate Cancer Research and Training (SUUPPRT)

PUBLIC ABSTRACT

Prostate cancer is a major threat to the health of African-American men. During his lifetime, an African-American man has a 19% chance of being diagnosed with prostate cancer and a 5% chance of dying from the disease. These figures are all the more startling when compared to the rate for Caucasian men of similar ages: African-American men are 60% more likely than their white counterparts to develop prostate cancer and two to three times more likely to die of their disease. Factors contributing to this disparity likely include a more biologically aggressive form of prostate cancer in African-American men, diagnosis at a more advanced state of the disease, differences in treatment choices or regimens, dietary factors, genetic factors, and differences in prostate cancer screening, care-seeking behavior, and other health care system interactions. Conquering this disease will require a multidisciplinary approach encompassing social interactions and norms, host factors, and tumor characteristics. We propose to establish an undergraduate training program to begin preparing a trained cohort of young African Americans to become tomorrow's prostate cancer researchers. The proposed Shaw-UNC Undergraduate Program in Prostate Cancer Research and Training (SUUPPRT) is a collaborative project between the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), a Research I university renowned for its multidisciplinary approach to cancer research, and Shaw University, the oldest Historically Black College/University in the South. The long-term goal of SUUPPRT is to increase recruitment of Shaw University students to UNC's graduate and professional schools with prostate cancer training or research programs.

SUUPPRT seeks to immerse promising undergraduate students with an interest in prostate cancer research into the research culture and to provide these students with the career guidance and preparation necessary to successfully matriculate to UNC-CH or other Research I universities. Each year four Shaw University students that show exceptional academic promise will be admitted to SUUPPRT. Thirteen different principal investigators at UNC-CH, engaged in diverse areas of prostate cancer research such as tumor biology, host factors, epidemiology, and public health, will serve as research mentors for a 10-week summer research experience for SUUPPRT students. During this time, students will be engaged in original research projects and as a consequence will learn principles of experimental and project design, execution of procedures inherent in the design, and data analysis and interpretation. A series of weekly discussions and seminars with faculty from UNC-CH, Shaw University, and Duke University will introduce the students to the spectrum of research in prostate cancer. Weekly lectures on genetics and molecular biology will provide the background necessary to understanding modern prostate cancer research. Mentoring outside of the laboratory is a crucial component of SUUPPRT. Students will participate in weekly seminars and workshops in which they meet minority role models and discuss issues such as the life of a graduate student or a research scientist and the life of a practicing physician or a research scientist. Clear and concise written and oral communication will be stressed in two workshops, and students will have opportunities to practice these skills during and after the summer program. Students that perform well in SUUPPRT will be invited back for a second summer research experience. These students will write a research paper at the completion of their experience and will have the opportunity to attend a major research conference. In addition, these senior students will attend workshops focused on preparation for graduate and professional school and take a GRE (Graduation Record Examination) course to help prepare them for their comprehensive examinations for graduate school. The training begun at UNC-CH will be continued during the academic year at Shaw University. There, the Shaw mentor, Dr. Daniel Howard, and the UNC-CH Principal Investigator, Dr. Paul Godley, will host a Prostate Cancer Research Interest Group for the students that will meet once a month and will meet individually with the students at least once a semester to discuss career options and academic progress.

SUUPPRT is built on a strong foundation of existing collaborations between Shaw University and UNC-CH. The two universities have formed the Shaw-UNC Center for Prostate Cancer Research as well as the UNC-Shaw Partnership for Health Disparity Research, and they collaborate on several funded research projects devoted to these two areas. Thus, SUUPPRT students will be nurtured in a highly successful collaborative environment devoted to understanding the origins of prostate cancer, treating those afflicted by this disease, and preventing it in future generations.