Planning Stage

INITIAL PLANNING STAGE The P20 partnership between Hampton University and the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute will be a dynamic collaboration with ongoing evaluation of projects and prioritization of resource allocation. While the Co-Pi's have ultimate responsibility for the functioning of the partnership, they will be guided by advice and input from an Advisory Committee (IAC) comprised of internal advisors from both institutions and an outside expert with internationally recognized expertise in gene-environment interaction. Committee members were nominated by institutional leadership and/or selected for special expertise and programmatic involvement. Committee members have been drawn from several academic disciplines important in the development of a strong multidisciplinary partnership. Through leadership roles in their disciplines, they are well qualified to evaluate partnership projects, to identify strategies to surmount logistic obstacles, and to know of additional faculty or core resources that can spur the successful growth of projects. This experience should facilitate useful input into long term planning aimed at sustaining intra-institutional collaborations in molecular epidemiology and environmental oncology. Faculty members from Hampton and from Pittsburgh are well represented on the Advisory Committee, so that an understanding of how each institution works frames committee deliberations. All Committee members had been briefed on the collaboration and expressed a high level of enthusiasm for the partnership and its goal of promoting the success of minority cancer researchers. There are two subcommittees of the Advisory Committee that have distinct oversight and planning responsibilities. These are the Research Review Subcommittee (RRC) and the Career Development and Mentoring Committee (CDMC). Research Review Committee (RRC) ¿ This committee, Co-Chaired by Dr. Daniel Johnson from Pittsburgh and Dr. Mark Evans from Hampton, will evaluate assess the progress of the P20 pilot projects and through review of semiannual reports and through evaluation of an annual Project Presentation by the Coinvestigators of the pilots projects. Daniel Johnson, PhD, Co-Chair of the RRC is Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, a Co-Editor of the international journal, Leukemia, a recipient of ongoing support from NIH RO1 grants and a standing member of the "Drug Discovery and Molecular Pharmacology" NIH study section. He has also served as a regular member of the American Cancer Society study section and is a frequent leader of sections at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology. Dr. Johnson has also trained Hampton undergraduates engaged in summer research rotations in his laboratory. RRC Co-Chair Mark Davis. PhD, is Chair of the Biology Department of Hampton University. His research interest is in Population Science. Other members of the RRC include: Laura Niedernhofer. MD-PhD a NIH-funded expert in DNA repair with a focus on the intersection of DMA repair mechanisms and aging. She also Co-Directs the Research Basis of Medical Knowledge course for MD-PhD students at Pittsburgh and has frequently mentored undergraduate trainees.