Cancer Research Training and Education Coordination

Through experienced leadership and continuous strategic investment, Hollings Cancer Center (HCC) has spearheaded cancer-focused educational and professional development activities across the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) for more than three decades. Inherent to its core mission, HCC offers an innovative portfolio of training activities and career enhancement programs to maximize cancer-focused career success and advance a broadly represented cancer research workforce. Buoyed by significant accomplishments, HCC leadership renewed ongoing programs and expanded its cancer research career enhancement activities during the current project period. These accomplishments include multiple HCC-driven initiatives and awards, such as a renewed postdoctoral T32 for Integrative Training in Oncogenic Signaling (T32CA193201), HCC-funded Postdoctoral and Graduate Fellowship programs, a summer undergraduate education award (R25CA193088), SC Cancer Disparities Research Center (CA210962), which includes an education and training core, and HCC-funded Clinical Scholars Program. As a result, peer-reviewed funding has increased by 41% since the last renewal. Training at HCC spans the education spectrum, from high school trainees to early-stage investigators, including continuing education for healthcare professionals in the community. Cancer research training is cohesively integrated with an annual cancer research symposium celebrating excellence across training disciplines and stages. What characterizes HCC’s educational and training enterprise is its significant record of accomplishment in providing SC’s only comprehensive, cancer-focused research education and training opportunities, offering cancer disparities educational opportunities in its programs, and strong partnerships with key institutions. In the next funding cycle, the Associate Director of Education and Training, Benjamin Toll, PhD (CPC), with guidance from an internal Education and Training Leadership Council, HCC Executive Council, and HCC’s External Scientific Advisory Board, is crafting several new initiatives that will create programs for the center’s education and training pipeline and novel trainings for healthcare professionals to enhance trainee tracking and evaluation system, and augment mentoring programs. New directions involve synergistic approaches with Community Outreach and Engagement to launch the Developing Leaders Program and a retention committee entitled Faculty Engagement and Advancement Team to foster critical faculty engagement. These efforts will help retain and develop a pipeline for future HCC leaders, expand collaborative cancer-oriented education and training programs with a broader reach in higher education, and establish a broad array of new mentoring initiatives.