UTHealth-CPRIT Innovation in Cancer Prevention Research Training Program
Our renewed and revamped Program sponsored by the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas, is recruiting junior doctoral and postdoctoral scholars from the Schools of Bioinformatics, Public Health, and Biomedical Sciences and other UTHealth institutions to ask important questions, apply the tools of innovative thinking and cutting edge research methods, engage in trans-disciplinary teams, tackle cancer disparities, and move the field of cancer prevention forward.
We offer both full-time training support via pre-and post-doctoral fellowships and affiliate fellowships for those who are interested in our training but who already have employment or training support. All fellows take part in an integrative seminar in spring and fall, take short courses from other schools, lead sessions for the summer undergraduate trainees, and work on joint projects. Postdocs can be based in one of the partner schools or other UTHealth institutions and participate in the UTHealth Postdoctoral Certificate Program.
Applications are now open for the 2021-2022 cycle and are due October 4th. Start date is Jan 1, 2022.
Dates for the fellowship information sessions are shown below (Webex at uthealth.webex.com/join/patricia.d.mullen). No registration required.
Friday, August 20th at noon
Monday, August 30th at 5 pm
Tuesday, September 7th at 8 am
Friday, September 10th at noon
How to apply
- Download the Predoctoral application or the Postdoctoral application and submit all materials to cpritfellowships@uth.tmc.edu
- Please label the emails as: Last_First_App Materials
- Checklists are listed on each application for you to review
We've complied a list of frequently asked questions, you can review them in our Applicant FAQ.
About Our Funding Agency
The program is generously funded by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas grant (RP#210042). The CPRIT program was created in 2007 as part of a voter-approved constitutional amendment authorizing the state to issue $3 billion in bonds to fund groundbreaking cancer research and prevention programs and services in Texas, and it was renewed in 2021.
You can find out more about CPRIT on their website: http://www.cprit.state.tx.us/
Predoctoral Innovation in Cancer Prevention & Research Training Program
Seeking applicants for January 1st, 2022 committed to a career in cancer prevention research!
Members of underrepresented minority groups are encouraged to apply
Download the Predoctoral Application.
Applications for the 2021 cycle are due October 4th at 11:59 pm.
Eligibility
- U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and international visa holders
- Enrolled in the UTHealth School Public Health (all campuses), School of Biomedical Informatics, or Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
- Residence in Texas during the fellowship
Program Benefits
- Full fellows receive up to four years of support
- $28,000 stipend and student health insurance
- $1,000 travel expenses for presentations at scientific meetings
- Tuition and fees, books, software, and laptop/tablet
- Training and coaching in innovative thinking and team science
- Writing consultations, training in compelling oral presentations and career development skills
- Trans-disciplinary research seminars and cross-discipline training
Note: Research expenses must be paid by the mentor
Doctoral affiliate fellows (with stipend/salary support from employment or other cancer research fellowships) receive the benefits listed above EXCEPT stipend support and student health insurance.
Fellowship begins January 1st, 2022.
Postdoctoral Innovation in Cancer Prevention & Research Training Program
Seeking applicants committed to a career in cancer prevention research!
Members of underrepresented minority groups highly encouraged to apply
Download the Postdoctoral Application.
Applications for the 2021 cycle are due October 4th at 11:59 pm.
Eligibility
- U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and international visa holders
- PhD, DrPH, MD, or other doctoral degree
- Work in a UTHealth lab/research project currently or have one in mind
- Residence in Texas during the fellowship
Program Benefits
- Full fellows receive 2 years of support
- $50,000 salary, full benefits, books, software, and laptop/tablet
- $2,000 travel expenses for presentations at scientific meetings
- Training and coaching in innovative thinking and team science
- Writing consultations and training in compelling oral presentations and career development skills
- Trans-disciplinary research seminars and cross-discipline training
Note: Research expenses must be paid by the mentor
Postdoctoral affiliate fellows (with salary/stipend support from employment or other cancer research fellowships) receive all benefits listed above except salary support and health insurance.
Fellowship begins January 1st, 2022.
Innovate Thinking
Take the Massive Open Online Course on Innovative Thinking by Roberta B. Ness, M.D., M.P.H., who literally wrote the book(s) on innovation.
Click on the photo below to see Dr. Ness's TedXHouston talk, "Innovative thinking: Can you be taught?"
Click on the photo below to see Dr. Ness’s TedMed Talk “Reinventing our scientific future”
Innovation Generation Tools Definitions
Ness, Roberta B. Innovation Generation: How to Produce Creative and Useful Scientific Ideas. Oxford University Press, 2012.
CPRIT fellowship alumni
Completed predoctoral projects
Name + Project Title |
Position + Institution |
| Sharangdhar Phatak, PhD (Computational models to design safer anti-cancer therapeutics) | Head of Platforms, Life Biosciences, Cambridge, MA |
| Sahiti Myneni, PhD, MSE (Attributing meaning to online social network analysis for tailored socio-behavioral support systems) | Assistant Professor (ten track) - UTHealth School of Biomedical Informatics |
| Jessica Hernandez Chacon, PhD (Activating the 4-1BB pathway for the expansion of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes for adoptive T-cell therapy for metastatic melanoma patients) | Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Education, Texas Tech University Health Science Center, Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, El Paso, TX |
| *Ebun Odeneye Ebunlomo, PhD, MCHES, MPH (Health promotion, not cancer prevention: Nigerian women and breast health) | Evaluation Fellow - Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, National Center for Chronic Dis-ease Prevention & Health Promotion, Atlanta |
| Silvia Ferrati, PhD (Nanochannel implant for constant and sustained delivery of therapeutics for pancreatic cancer) | Research Scientist Translational, Aeglea BioTherapeutics, Austin, TX |
| Sanchaika Gaur, PhD (The role of MIR-34a in inhibiting prostate tumor growth in the bone and the induction of apoptosis and a novel form autophagy) | Postdoctoral Scientist - Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles |
| *Renke Zhou, PhD (A flexible semiparametric joint model for semi-competing risks data with missing cause of informative terminal event) | Senior Biostatistician (appt in process to Assistant Professor) - Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston |
| Andrew Aschenbrenner (Multivariate analysis in RNA-Seq expression data) | Instructor, Washington University at St. Louis, Department of Neurology, St. Louis, MO |
| Jose (Franck) Diaz Vasquez, PhD (Systematic data quality assessment for the reliable reuse of clinical data in research) | Research Associate, Health Informatics - WakeHealth |
| Krit Ritthipichai, PhD, MS, DVM (Uncovering the role of RNA-binding protein with multiple slicing in tumor infiltrating lymphocytes) | Senior Scientist, Iovance Biotherapeutics, Tampa, FL |
| Zhiguo “Stanley” Yu, MS, PhD (A new and improved way to explore and understand PubMed citations) | Data Scientist, Microsoft Research, Assistant and Intelligence Team, Microsoft, Bellevue, WA |
| Ming Cao, PhD (Improved statistical inference for social networks by combining exponential random graph models and latent space models) | Senior Data Scientist, Prognos AI, New York, NY |
| David Savage, MD, PhD (Role of UBE4B in neuroblastoma chemotherapy sensitivity) | Resident Physician - Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Internal Medicine, Cleveland Ohio |
| Muhammad “Tuan” Amith (Design and architecture of an ontology-driven dialogue system of HPV vaccine counseling) | Assistant Professor (Research), School of Biomedical Informatics, University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, TX |
*predoctoral affiliate
Completed postdoctoral projects
Name + Project Title |
Position + Institution |
| Marcia C. de Oliveira Otto, PhD (Identifying novel approaches to dietary assessment methods) | Assistant Professor (ten track) - Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, & Environmental Sciences, UTHealth School of Public Health |
| Meng Chen, PhD (Pathway analysis of bladder cancer genome-wide association study identifies novel pathways involved in bladder cancer development) | Duncan Family Institute Mentored Junior Faculty Fellow, Department of Epidemiology, UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston |
| Heidi Russell, MD, PhD (Dose reduction strategies for low-risk rhabdomyosarcoma: using cost comparisons to help decide between two chemotherapy regimens with similar outcomes) | Associate Professor (currently on leave) - Department of Pediatrics, Section of Hematology-Oncology, Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children’s Hospital |
| Katherine Hutcheson, PhD (High burden of late effects upon entry into head & neck survivorship care) | Associate Professor, Department of Head & Neck Surgery Section of Speech Pathology & Audiology, Division of Surgery, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX |
| Mary McGuire, PhD (Cancer and embryogenesis share common pathways at the molecular level) | Assistant Professor (ten track) & Director, Advanced Medical Consulting Group - Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, UTHealth Med School |
| Jane Richards Montealegre, PhD, MSPH (Ethnographic mapping identifies a productive and feasible venue for a community evaluation of self-sample HPV testing with cytology triage among Latina immigrant screening non-attendees in Harris County, Texas) | Assistant Director, Community Outreach & Engagement, Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX |
| Hung Luu, MD, PhD, MPH (The role of toll-like receptors in cervical dysplasia) | Assistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh & Member, Cancer Epidemiology & Prevention Program, Hillman Cancer Center, Pittsburg, PA |
| Janet Macheledt, MD, MPH (Cancer screening recommendations: A re-evaluation of the data) | Physician - Methodist Oncology Partners, Hematology-Oncology, Houston Methodist West Hospital |
| Thanh Cong Bui, MD, DrPH, MPH (Oral hygiene, oral health, and oral HPV infection) | Assistant Professor of Research, University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, Department of Family & Preventive Medicine, Oklahoma City, OK |
| Zhenlong Li, PhD (A multiscale computational platform for the rational design of folate-receptor -specific drug nanocarriers) | Research Associate - Department of Physiology & Biostatistics, Weil Cornell Medical College, NYC |
| Azam Mandana Yazdani, PhD (Identification of causal structures in multi-omic data: Using data from different granularities) | Postdoctoral Fellow - CPRIT Fellowship in Computational Biology, UTHealth School of Public Health |
| Jingjing Jiao, MD, PhD (Molecular characteristics of high prevalence of Hepatocellular carcinoma and underlying liver disease in Hispanics) | Instructor, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Molecular and Cellular Oncology |
| Sara Prijic, PhD, DVM (Breast cancer metastasis: What does cholesterol have to do with it?) | Senior Scientist, Alkermes Inc., Waltham, MA |
| Arzu Ulu, PhD, MSc (A novel target in breast cancer metastasis: Role of Net1A in breast cancer cell motility) | Assistant Project Scientist, University of California, Riverside, Division of Biomedical Sciences, Riverside, CA |
| Jing Gong, PhD (Integrative analysis of complex diseases; high-throughput data mining; non-coding RNA analysis) | Department of Bioinformatics faculty position in China |
Contact us
For more information regarding the fellowship, please email CPRITFellowships@uth.tmc.edu, or call 713.500.9476. Kandace Parks, Research Coordinator II.
Program Director
Maria E. Fernández, PhD
Lorne Bain Distinguished Professor in Public Health and Medicine
Director, Center for Health Promotion and Prevention Research
Professor of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences, School of Public Health
Director, Texas Prevention Research Center
Program Co-Directors
Patricia Dolan Mullen, DrPH, MLS
The University of Texas System Distinguished Teaching Professor, President’s Scholar, and Minnie Stevens Piper Professor
Cui Tao, PhD
Professor of Bioinformatics and Director of the UTHealth Center for Biomedical Semantics and Data Intelligence
Executive Committee
| Alanna Morrison, PhD - Prof & Chair, Dept of Epidemiology, Human Genetics & Environmental Sci; Director, Ctr for Human Genetics (SPH) | Hua Xu, PhD - Robert H. Graham Prof in Entrepreneurial Biomedical Informatics & Bioengineering; Director, Ctr for Computational Biomedicine; CPRIT Scholar (SBMI) |
| Belinda Reininger, DrPH - Prof, Dept of Health Promotion & Behavioral Sci; Dean, Brownsville Campus (SPH) | Xiaoqian Jiang, PhD - Prof & Director, Ctr for Secure Artificial intelligence for Healthcare; CPRIT Rising Star (SBMI) |
| George Delclos, MD, PhD - Prof, Dept of Epidemiology, Human Genetics & Environmental Sci; Director, Employee Health Clinic (SPH) | Zhiqiang An, PhD - Prof, Molecular Medicine; Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair in Chemistry; Director, Texas Therapeutic Institute (Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine), McGovern Med School (GSBS) |
| Elmer Bernstam, MD, MSE - Prof of Biomedical Informatics & Internal Medicine (McGovern Med School) & GSBS; SBMI Assoc Dean for Research; Director, CCTS Biomedical Informatics Group | Michael Blackburn, PhD - Exec VP & Chief Academic Officer, UTHealth; GSBS Dean & John P. McGovern Distinguished Prof of Biomedical Sci; Prof & William S. Kilroy, Sr. Distinguished University Chair in Pulmonary Disease , McGovern Med School |
| Shine Chang, PhD - UT System Distinguished Teaching Prof & Ashbel Smith Prof, Dept of Epidemiology; Director, Cancer Prevention Research Training Prog (UT MDA Cancer Ctr) | Melissa Aldrich, PhD – Asst Prof, Ctr for Molecular Imaging, McGovern Med School |
Cancer Prevention Innovation Scholars
Daniel Harrington, PhD
Sahiti Myneni, PhD, MSE
Ross Shegog, PhD
Lead Coordinators
Melissa Valerio, PhD, MPH
Susan Fenton, PhD,
Raquel Y. Salinas, PhD
Angela Ross, DNP, MPH
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Learn more about the program
This is the 2nd competitive renewal with new leadership and a curriculum that retains the best of the past 11 years and adds exciting new components.
