St. Baldrick’s Announces 2012 Summer Fellows

Avinash Maganty (left), 2012 St. Baldrick’s Summer Fellow, Weill Cornell Medical College.

The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is proud to announce today that it has awarded $85,000 to support summer fellows at 17 institutions across the U.S., seven of which will be hosting a St. Baldrick’s Summer Fellow for the first time.

With only 4 percent of all federal cancer research funding dedicated to childhood cancer research, few young doctors are encouraged to choose this area as a specialty. These awards allow students who might be interested in studying pediatric oncology in medical school to work on a childhood cancer research project for their summer term and explore this field of study at an early stage of their college careers.

“With the goal of ensuring the best and brightest are at work helping children with cancer, St. Baldrick’s knows that providing early exposure to childhood cancer research is key to attracting top medical students to the profession,” said Kathleen Ruddy, executive director for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation. “Advancements in childhood cancer treatments would not be possible without researchers who choose to specialize in this field. One of this year’s summer fellows may one day achieve a cure we’ve been waiting for.”

The following institutions will receive a St. Baldrick’s Summer Fellow grant for the first time:

• University of Colorado Denver, Denver, Colo.
• Northwestern University, Chicago, Ill.
• Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Ind.
• The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Penn.
• Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, S.C.
• University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
• Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Wash.

The following institutions are repeat St. Baldrick’s Summer Fellow grant recipients:

• Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, Calif.
• University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif.
• Emory University, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Atlanta, Ga.
• University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kan.
• University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Min.
• Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.
• Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, N.Y.
• Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio
• The Pennsylvania State University, Hershey, Penn.
• Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wis.

For more information about research currently being funded, visit “Where the Money Goes” at StBaldricks.org.