Two high school students are headed back to their classrooms with a deeper understanding of cancer research, thanks to a new program at the Cancer Center at Illinois (CCIL).
The Pre-College Cancer Engineering Summer Institute at Illinois (PRE-CE) is a summer research and career exploration program for high school juniors and seniors that runs alongside ResearcHStart, a multi-institutional program that began in 2015. PRE-CE differs from other programs because of its unique paired placement model.
“Students are intentionally placed together within the same research group, giving them a peer to learn with, problem-solve with, and receive support from throughout the summer. Both PRE-CE and ResearcHStart programs provide hands-on cancer research experiences, but PRE-CE’s paired placement model creates a distinct learning and peer-support experience,” said Stephanie Dietrich, Senior Manager for Education at the CCIL.
Left to right: Anagha Jayaraman, Victoria Lim, Claire Schane
This summer, Anagha Jayaraman and Victoria Lim formed the program’s first cohort. Graduate student Claire Schane mentored them as they worked in CCIL program leader Erik Nelson‘s lab.
The cohort members researched breast cancer dormancy and recurrence, investigating how inactive cancer cells can persist and spread to other parts of the body. “We were testing to see how dietary lipids affect mast cell activity and function. This is because mast cells, which are involved in our body’s immune response like allergies, can play a role in cancer recurrence,” said Lim.
Going hand-in-hand with research, mentorship is a central aspect of PRE-CE. Lim and Jayaraman had the opportunity to work closely with Schane, learning about lab skills under her guidance.
“We have really great mentors who demonstrate or walk us through protocols and then let us work and learn through hands-on experience. They are always there when we have questions and are patient and encouraging,” said Lim “We get to see and work with a lot of lab instruments that wouldn’t normally be found in a high school. It’s all a perfect balance of real lab work and learning.”
Both Lim and Jayaraman emphasize the importance of being able to explore these experiences as high schoolers, where they would typically not have the chance to work with researchers in a lab environment.
“Claire has been an incredible mentor, giving me the opportunity to do hands-on work in the lab while teaching me the reasoning behind the experiments and helping me grow as a researcher. As a high school student, having direct access to researchers and learning from them every day has been an unbelievable experience,” said Jayaraman.
Mentors also gain the opportunity to learn something from these relationships. “Mentoring Anagha and Victoria has been a pleasure. Their questions and enthusiasm for the work every day was wonderful. Mentoring them has reiterated the importance of hypothesis driven science and open communication about scientific ideas and technical skills,” said Schane.
The PRE-CE program will continue next year and generally run from the second full week of June through the first week of August. Specific dates will be announced with the release of application materials this fall.
Editor’s Note:
This story was written by Florence Lin, CCIL Communications Intern.