Training

The partnership is committed to training students to become leaders in cancer disparities research and improvement of practices to eliminate disparities. Overall, 68 students (40 minority) participated in our programs. 23 students (17 minority) are now in doctoral programs and 13 more (all minority) are applying. One of these programs, a pilot training program to increase minority nursing PhD students successfully prepared 3 African American and 1 Latino Master's level student for entry. And, the pilot program obtained an additional grant of over $500,000 to train 24 more students. Descriptions of several of our student training projects are described below.

Health Disparities in Cancer
A course in Health Disparities in Cancer was developed by Drs. Leticia Marquez-Magana(SFSU) and Tung Nguyen (UCSF) and taught at SFSU. This course served to introduce senior undergraduate, post-baccalaureate and masters students to the issues and challenges in cancer disparities, engage them in active learning about the field, and encourage their continued development as researchers practitioners.

Biomedical Engineering and Radiation Physics
The SFSU Physics and Astronomy Department is collaborating with UCSF Department of Radiation Oncology to develop a pilot program in Biophysics and Biomedical Imaging. Two SFSU graduate students are working with UCSF physicists Lynn Verhey and Jean Pouliot and SFSU physicists Roger Blank and James Lockhart. The project, "Evaluation of Portal Images for Position Control in Prostate Cancer Treatment," provides students with training in laboratory methods (SFSU) and with hands-on research guidance, data acquisition, and analysis (UCSF). The students' project is to compare 2D to 3D alignment procedures for irradiation of prostate cancer to determine the impact of using only 2D information for the daily alignment of the prostate gland. The research has the potential of providing improved therapeutic benefits to patients.

Genomic Instability in Breast Cancer Tissue
Leticia Marquez-Magana (SFSU) and Joe Gray (UCSF) are jointly sponsoring SFSU Master's students' involvement in research by Dr. Marquez-Magana that is analyzing genomic instability in Latina breast cancer tissue. Telomere shortening has been linked to genomic instability, and the project will study its incidence in available breast cancer tissue samples, working with the Latina population at a local church that currently has over 3,000 families in its registry. In consultation with Eliseo Pérez-Stable (UCSF), Director of the Regional Network Center for the Hispanic/Latino Cancer Network, Dr. Marquez-Magana will develop appropriate outreach and educational materials to inform women of opportunities to participate in the proposed studies. Sample analysis will be completed using methodology available in the Gray laboratory, and results that indicate genomic instability and predicted changes in gene expression will be analyzed in the Marquez-Magana laboratory through real-time RT-PCR.

Increasing Minority Enrollment in Cancer Prevention Trials
Numerous studies have demonstrated that when African Americans are treated in prospective randomized trials their outcomes are similar to whites, but outside of such trials the outcomes are much worse. This observation suggests that one solution to reducing disparities is to increase their accrual into randomized trials. Drs. Roach and Macher are working with their faculties at UCSF and SFSU to identify opportunities in this area, and especially to establish a regular mechanism for training of outreach workers and recruitment of patients into prevention and treatment trials at UCSF. SFSU undergraduate students were recruited to participate in these activities.

Research Internship/Mentoring Program and Prevention-Focused Outreach
A pilot program led by Joycelyn Speight, MD, PhD, and Charlotte Ferretti, RN, EdD, was designed to prepare minority students in SFSU's master's degree nursing program for admission to PhD programs with a research focus on cancer, as well as to give these students practical experience in community outreach and cancer education with underserved populations. The project was successful at all levels and subsequently received significant funding for continuation and expansion. In October 2004, The California Wellness Foundation awarded SFSU $210,000 under its Workforce Diversity Initiative to support twelve new students in the project over the next three years. A congressional earmark of $375,000 to SFSU will provide support for twelve additional students.

Increasing Minority Participation on Spanish/English Internet Stop-Smoking Trials
This project is a collaboration of Ricardo Muñoz, PhD, Carlos Penilla, MS (UCSF), and Sacha Bunge, PhD (SFSU).

The Latino Mental Health Research Program at UCSF has obtained funding from the Tobacco-related Disease Research Program (TRDRP) for a study titled" Internet Health Research Center: Smoking, Latinos, and the Web." The TRDRP grant is paying for the development of a website at UCSF to carry out randomized control smoking cessation trails in Spanish and English. This project takes advantage of the TRDRP funding to train SFSU students into the pipeline for minority-focused, cancer-related careers by involving them in the study. The U56 component pays for the student stipends.

Three students from SFSU's Career Opportunities in Research Program are research assistants in this project. Their goal is to recruit 10-12% Latino, 10-12% African American, and 10-12% Asian smokers in the English language site, and 10-12% US Latinos in Spanish speaking site. They are tracking participants' responses to e-mail reminders to complete 1, 3, 6, and 12 month follow up interviews and obtain this information via the phone if the participants do not complete them online. They also answer e-mails from participants and learn to conduct basic data analyses. The specific aims of the study are to increase resources for cancer research activities for SFSU students, recruitment of students from the major minority groups to learn how to conduct cancer research with Latinos, African Americans, and Asians, and improve effectiveness of the UCSF CCC smoking cessation efforts with minority populations in the US.