The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recently convened a two-day workshop, “Cancer Engineering: The Convergence of Engineering and Health to Advance Cancer Research and Care,” to examine the emerging field of cancer engineering and consider opportunities to improve patient outcomes through the convergence of engineering with oncology practice, research, and policy. The workshop assembled experts from various fields across numerous sectors, including academia, medicine, and industry, to discuss the critical need for multidisciplinary cancer research and care approaches.
Cancer Center at Illinois (CCIL) Director Rohit Bhargava was instrumental in the workshop’s ideation and convocation. Bhargava served as co-chair for the event with Hedvig Hricak from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Roderic Pettigrew from The Texas A&M University System.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recently convened a two-day workshop focused on the emerging field of cancer engineering. Photo: Kevin Allen Photography.
CCIL Director Rohit Bhargava (far left) served as workshop co-chair and a keynote presenter. Photo: Kevin Allen Photography.
This workshop marks a significant milestone in the cancer research and cancer care landscape. Future advancements in cancer research and care will require solutions to complex problems—problems no individual expert can solve. Multidisciplinary research and cooperation between researchers, medical practitioners, and policy makers are necessary for emergent cancer problems and their solutions.
This workshop will catalyze cancer engineering development and the partnerships and solutions needed to address the complexity of cancer research and care.
What exactly is cancer engineering? Cancer engineering is a multidisciplinary approach that combines biology, engineering, and health care to devise innovative solutions that promote the delivery of high-quality cancer care.
This novel cancer engineering workshop featured presentations by primary investigators, students, and early career researchers. Six student researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign were selected from universities nationwide, including several of the CCIL’s Tissue Microenvironment Training Program fellows and CCIL Educational Engagement Postdoctoral Scholar Craig Richard.
Richard’s presentation focused on using digital strategies to promote awareness of cancer research, tackle misinformation, and increase public knowledge of cancer research careers. Workshop participants also discussed best practices for mentorship and training to prepare future career investigators.
CCIL Educational Engagement Postdoctoral Scholar Craig Richard was one of the postdoctoral researchers invited to give a workshop presentation. Photo: Kevin Allen Photography.
Other workshop presentations addressed topics such as: strategies to break down disciplinary silos and promote convergence in engineering and cancer research and care; consideration of technologies and interventions that apply engineering approaches to accelerate cancer research and improve care and outcomes for patients with cancer; examples of the challenges and opportunities to translate advances from engineering into technologies that enable precision cancer research and care; strategies to ensure that advances in cancer engineering are broadly disseminated; approaches to facilitate broad access to the output of cancer engineering to promote the delivery of high-quality care, particularly in community-based settings of care; and, opportunities to develop and expand the cancer engineering workforce, including leadership development, multidisciplinary education and training, collaborative research approaches, and use of dissemination and implementation science strategies.
Workshop attendants also explored the necessary actionable steps to promote convergence in engineering and cancer research and care. Future initiatives will address critical issues ranging from rewarding team science, developing policy that ensures equitable cancer engineering innovations, improving communication between communities and scientists, ethical technology development, designing research and health care spaces that facilitate interactions between cancer institutes, basic science, and engineers, and investing in educational pipelines that promote convergence, experiential learning, and real-world problem solving.
The workshop was hosted at the National Academy of Sciences Building in Washington, D.C., on May 20-21, 2025.
This story was written by Craig Richard.