11th Annual Symposium on Global Cancer Research

Overview:  Early Career Investigator Day for 2023 will focus on mentorship.  Mentorship is a key element in facilitating career advancement and success.  It may be defined as a process where a person (the mentor) provides guidance to another (the mentee) in achieving their education and career goals.  Typically, a mentor is advanced in their career, occupies a position with the organization that is based on expertise and achievements.  Mentors can also be peers who learn from each other and share their learnings and resources for mutual benefit. Despite the value of mentorship in the conduct of research, there are few programs available to support mentors, link mentees with mentors, and facilitate productive engagements between mentors and mentees.  

9:00-9:30AM
30m

Welcome and ASGCR Orientation
Sudha Sivaram, DrPH, MPH, Program Director, Center for Global Health, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA

Opening Remarks
Doug Lowy, MD, Principal Deputy Director, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD, USA

Graciela Meza, MD, MPH, Associate Professor, Dirección Regional de Salud de Loreto, Facultad de Medicina Humana, Universidad Nacional de Amazonía Peruana (UNAP), Iquitos, Peru

Amr Soliman, MD, PhD, Professor, Department of Community Health and Medicine, City University of New York, New York, USA

9:30-10:25AM
55m

Panel Discussion on Mentee Experiences

Session Chair: Joanne D’Silva, PhD, MPH, Branch Director, Intramural Diversity Workforce Branch, Center for Cancer Training, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA

Session Description: The aim of this panel is to discuss the process, challenges, and opportunities while seeking mentorship from the perspectives of early career cancer investigators based in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We invite four early career investigators to share their experiences about seeking mentorship within their institutions.  Mentees make a presentation on their career trajectory thus far - how they started in the path of cancer research; what are the educational requirements for cancer research in their institution?  How do they see their career path progressing?  What strategies did they use to find mentors?  If they were to design an ideal system of cancer research mentorship, what would it look like?

Introduction to Panel: Douglas Perin, JD, MPH, Project Manager, Clinical Monitoring Research Program Directorate, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Leidos Biomed, Rockville, MD, USA

Panelists:
Ana Estrada-Florez, PhD, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of California Davis, USA and Universidad del Tolima, Colombia
Dinah Kassaman, RN, PhD, Senior Instructor, Aga Khan University Hospital, Kenya
Hassan M. Abushukair, MD Student, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan
Kavita Singh, PhD, Senior Research Scientist, Public Health Foundation of India, India

10:25-10:30AM
5m

Break

10:30-11:25AM
55m

Panel Discussion on Mentorship

Session Chair: Richard P. Moser, PhD, Training Director and Research Methods Coordinator, Behavioral Research Program, Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA

Session Description: The aim of this panel is to discuss the challenges and opportunities for providing mentorship for cancer research in LMICs.  We invite four mentors to provide their experiences serving as mentors and about mentorship in their institutions.  Some questions to consider are: What are features for successful models of mentorship in global research? What are resource-specific training needs for mentors in global cancer research? How to do mentors manage time and resources to offer guidance? What are skills and competencies needed for successful mentorship? What networking and grant opportunities have been helpful to your mentees? 

Introduction to Panel
Yelena Shnayder, MS, Public Health Analyst, Center for Global Health, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA

Panelists:
Mabel Bohorquez, MD, Professor, Departamento de Ciencias Clínicas, Universidad del Tolima, Colombia
Mazvita Muchengeti, MBChB, DipHIVMan, MSc, PhD, Acting Head of Department, National Cancer Registry, South Africa
Nagi El-Saghir, MD, FACP, FASCO, Professor and Head, Division of Hematology Oncology, department of Internal Medicine; Director of Breast Center of Excellence, NK Basile Cancer Institute, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon
Priya Ranganathan, MD, Professor of Anesthesiology, Tata Memorial Center; Director, CReDO Training Program, Mumbai, India

11:25AM-12:00PM
35m

Facilitated Discussion in Breakout Rooms

Session Chair: Isobel Bandurek, MSc, RD, Research Capacity Manager, Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases, London, UK

Session Description: We will have six breakout rooms for discussion.  Based on 2022 experience where we had over 90 participants, we will assign three topics amongst the six rooms; hence, two rooms will discuss the same topic.  The topics proposed are as follows:

Breakout rooms 1 and 2: Establishing a mentoring relationship

• What local or national mentoring programs do you know of?
• How would you find a mentor if there a no programs available?
• What would you say when first approaching a prospective mentor? How might this differ depending on the channel of communication or how well you know the person?

Breakout rooms 3 and 4: Making the most of a mentoring relationship

• What are the key characteristics of a ‘model’ mentee? 
• What themes or topics can or should be explored through mentoring?
• What can you ask from a mentor? Is there anything you shouldn’t ask for?

Breakout rooms 5 and 6: Career development beyond mentoring

• What benefits of mentoring can you seek out from other people or places? Do you have any examples?
• What skills do early-career investigators have that will make them good mentors now?
• What can peer mentoring provide that traditional mentoring cannot? And vice versa?

Report Out from Breakout Rooms & Closing Remarks
Isobel Bandurek, MSc, RD, Research Capacity Manager, Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases, London, UK

9:00-9:15AM
15m

ASGCR Orientation
Mishka Kohli Cira, MPH, Public Health Advisor, Center for Global Health, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA

Welcome & Opening Remarks
Ophira Ginsburg, MD, MSc., Senior Advisor for Clinical Research, Center for Global Health, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA

9:15-10:15AM
1h

Scientific Session: Learning from our Peers: Translating Advances in Implementation Science in HIV Care to Cancer Control in LMIC Contexts

Session Chairs: Elvin Geng, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis, USA
                            Thomas A. Odeny, MD, MPH, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, USA
                

Session Description: Seminal advances in HIV/AIDS treatment have resulted in increased lifespans among people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide. The substantial progress made in the field of basic to translation and implementation science has led to the development of novel, safe, and effective modalities for HIV prevention, treatment, and care especially in resource-constrained settings in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In this session, we will aim to highlight the strides made in the HIV implementation science research that have informed successful HIV care delivery models and strategies in LMICs, such as community-based testing, linkage from testing to care, task shifting, decentralized care delivery, peer support groups, and leveraging community health workers to improve reach, adoption, acceptability, affordability, and sustainability of HIV care interventions and discuss on how these strategies can be adapted for global cancer control.

Speakers
Dan Wu, PhD, Assistant Professor, Clinical Research Department, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
Izukanji Sikazwe, BSc, MBChB, MPH, Chief Executive Officer and Director, Center for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia
Thomas A. Odeny, MD, MPH, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, USA

10:15-10:20AM
5m

Break & Transition to GatherTown

10:20-11:00AM
40m

Meet the Abstract Authors: Interactive Poster Session on Gather Town

Session Description: Participants will be directed to Gather Town to view posters and engage with abstract presenters in this immersive web-based platform that allows participants to move and interact freely within a virtual space.

11:00AM-11:55AM
55

Oral Abstract ‘Flash Talk’ Session

Session Chairs:    María Teresa Bourlon, MD, MSc, Assistant Professor, Hematology and Oncology Department, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, Mexico City, Mexico; Representative, Academic Global Oncology Task Force, American Society of Clinical Oncology

Hawa Camara, PhD, MPH, NCI Fellow, Cancer Prevention Fellowship Program, Rockville, MD, USA

Session Description: This session will be a series of rapid-fire presentations from the top-scoring accepted scientific abstracts for the 11th Annual Symposium on Global Cancer Research. Each presentation will be a five-minute oral PowerPoint presentation by the lead author providing a high-level overview of the research study or implementation program. Abstracts will be grouped by topic area selected by the abstract author.

Topic 1: Prevention & Early Detection, Diagnosis, and Prognosis

Human papillomavirus (HPV) cervical cancer screening and secondary prevention in Côte d'Ivoire: time from testing to treatment
Rita-Josiane Gouesse, PhD, Research Coordinator, Scale Up Cervical
Cancer Elimination with Secondary prevention Strategy (SUCCESS), Jhpiego, Côte d'Ivoire

Multilevel barriers and facilitators of smoking cessation in people living with HIV in Vietnam: A qualitative analysis 

Thanh HL Hoang, MD, MPH, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

Collaboratively Adapting a Telebehavioral Mobile Platform to Enhance Patient-Provider Communication Regarding Cervical Cancer Prevention Efforts in Bluefields, Nicaragua
Maria Geba, MD, Medical Fellow, Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

Public Health Campaign on the Awareness of Alcohol Flushing and Prevention of Upper Aerodigestive Tract Cancers in East Asia
Che-Hong Chen, PhD, Senior Research Scientist, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

Understanding the cervical cancer self-collection preferences of women living in urban and rural Rwanda
Varun Nair, BSc Student, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Topic 2: Treatment & Cancer Control, Survivorship, and Outcomes Research

Adapting a tobacco cessation treatment intervention and implementation strategies to enhance implementation effectiveness and clinical outcomes in the context of HIV care in Viet Nam: A case study 
Donna Shelley, MD, MPH, New York University School of Global Public Health, New York, NY, USA

Clinical trials in gastroesophageal cancers: An analysis of the global landscape of interventional trials from ClinicalTrials.gov
Ayo Falade, MD, MBA, APGD, Resident Physician, Mass General Brigham Salem Hospital, Salem, MA, USA

Design Workshops: Participatory co-design and iterative adaptation of cervical cancer screening implementation plans in Peru
Fatou Jallow, PhD, Health Specialist, Center for Global Health, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA

Supporting African countries in developing Cancer Control Programmes: the added value of south-south cooperation
Marianna Nobile, PhD, Associate Program Officer, Program of Action for Cancer Therapy, International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria

Cancer control through surveillance: harmonised cancer registration guidelines for East Africa
Annet Nakaganda, PhD, Research Lead, Cancer Epidemiology, Uganda Cancer Institute, Kampala, Uganda

11:55AM-12:00PM
5m

Closing Remarks
María Teresa Bourlon, MD, MSc, Assistant Professor, Hematology and Oncology Department, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, Mexico City, Mexico; Representative, Academic Global Oncology Task Force, American Society of Clinical Oncology

9:00-9:15AM
15m

ASGCR Orientation
Mishka Kohli Cira, MPH, Public Health Advisor, Center for Global Health, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA

Opening Remarks
Eduardo Cazap, MD, PhD, FASCO, Founder and First President, Sociedad Latino Americana y del Caribe De Oncología Médica; Editor-in-Chief, eCancer; Co-chair, RINC-SLACOM

9:15-10:15AM
1h

Scientific Session: Connecting for cancer control: Collective action through the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD) network of implementation projects

Session Chair: Arunah Chandran, MD, PhD, Public Health Officer, Early Detection, Prevention, and Infections Branch, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France

Session Description: Is the whole greater than the sum of its parts? In this session we will explore how a rethinking of this cliched expression can support cancer research implementation. We will explore the nurturance of local and global interrelationships as a strategy to support research to action and consider the benefits, practical limitations and considerations of independent and collective action. The GACD Research Network – and specifically the Cancer Research Programme – will be presented as one example of international collaborative efforts. A panel discussion will bring together diverse voices from across the Cancer Research Programme to discuss critical issues related to collective action, such as equity between teams and institutions, and building collective action into grant proposals.

Panelists:
Ishu Kataria, PhD, MSc, Senior Public Health Researcher, Center for Global Noncommunicable Diseases, RTI International, India
Johnblack Kabukye, PhD, MBChB, Medical Officer and Informatician, Uganda Cancer Institute, Kampala, Uganda
Lana Ray, PhD, Indigenous Research Chair in Decolonial Futures; Director, Anishinaabe Kendaasiwin Institute (AKI); Associate Professor, Department of Indigenous Learning, Lakehead University, Canada (Anishinaabe)
William Pomat, PhD, MSc, Director, Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research, Goroka, Papua New Guinea

10:15-10:20AM
5m

Break & Transition to GatherTown

10:20-11:15AM
55m

Meet the Abstract Authors: Interactive Poster Session on Gather Town

Session Description: Participants will be directed to Gather Town to view posters and engage with abstract presenters in this immersive web-based platform that allows participants to move and interact freely within a virtual space.

11:15-11:55AM
40m

Pearline Award Presentation & Keynote Address
Session Chair: Franklin Huang, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, University of California San Francisco, USA

Pearline Awardee: Yin Ling Woo, MB BCh, PhD, Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Faculty of Medicine, University Malaya, Malaysia

Session Description: The Rachel Pearline Award honors Rachel Pearline, MD, MPH. Dr. Pearline was a revered oncology fellow committed to global cancer control, who received the award named in her memory in 2016 following her death at the age of 38, in November 2015, from gastric cancer. In honor of Dr. Rachel Pearline, each year the Annual Symposium on Global Cancer Research Steering Committee, we recognize one outstanding professional who embodies virtue and eminence in cancer research, practice, and/or training in a low- and middle-income country setting.

The 2023 Rachel Pearline Awardee is Yin Ling Woo, MA, MRCOG, PhD, a Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University Malaya who conceptualized and implemented Program ROSE (www.programrose.org), an innovative cervical screening program incorporating HPV self-sampling.

11:55AM-12:00PM
5m

Closing Remarks
Patti Gravitt, PhD, MS, Deputy Director, Center for Global Health, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA