The Center for Translational Cancer Research (CTCR) at the University of Delaware

Three competitive summer fellowships are available for students interested in the following summer project.

Project PI: (e-mail with questions).

Note: You must have transportation back and forth between the campus and the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center at Christiana Care (approximately 5 miles). All students will be required to be HIPAA certified and take human subjects training prior to working on the project.

Description of the proposed project

The Christiana Care Helen F. Graham Cancer Center (HFGCC) is compiling a Family Cancer Risk Registry (FCRR) to identify and document cancer risk factors that run in Delaware families. Currently the registry contains information on approximately 500 families and some 15,000 individuals from Delaware and neighboring states who either have cancer or are at high risk for developing some form of the disease. The registry contains demographic information (age, sex, race, geographic residence and occupation), and documents cancers and other diseases present, as well as pertinent clinical data and follow-up, personal lifestyle, and genetic factors that can increase a person's risk for developing some types of cancer.

Figure 1. FCRR Demographic Accrual.

Zohra Ali-Khan Catts, MS, CGC, a full time genetics counselor at the HFGCC serves as project director of the FCRR Currently, she and her staff are working to build and incorporate all of the collected data into a comprehensive database which will list all family pedigrees including as many generations as possible. Once the data is updated, the plan is to analyze the data with the purpose of identifying families that have patterns of cancer that are consistent with hereditary cancer but do not have known gene mutations. For example, several families have been identified with a clear pattern of hereditary breast cancer but who are negative for all of the presently known mutations. This information will be used to develop new study ideas, such as new candidate gene search and epidemiological studies. It also will permit identification of any as yet unappreciated cancer clusters in the region that might be associated with environmental factors rather than genetics.

Three fellowships are available for sophomores and juniors to participate in this project and explore the use of state-of-the-art approaches to define cancer risk in large populations. Fellows will learn to enter and update genetic data into databases, learn to construct pedigrees, manage data on progeny, and learn how dominant and recessive mutations track in pedigrees. They also will learn some basic epidemiology. Students will be given the opportunity to observe counseling sessions, gain an appreciation of the clinical process involved in cancer risk assessment, and gain a better understanding of the impact of cancer on families. This is an ideal opportunity and experience for students interested in genetic counseling as a career.