Written by Patrick Short, OUR Ambassador, Applied Mathematics and Quantitative Biology major

I had the unique opportunity to attend the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. in early April as a part of the Thomas J. Bardos Program for Undergraduates.  The program is structured to provide the opportunity to attend two consecutive annual meetings for undergraduates interested in a career in research, particularly those interested in working in cancer research.  Walking into my very first session of the long weekend I witnessed one of the most impressive speaking feats I have seen to this day.  Dr. Donald S. Coffey, a researcher in Oncology, Urology, and Pharmacology at Johns Hopkins University, gave the entire history of cancer research in just under twenty minutes.  His delivery included dozens of creative metaphors, sparing a lot of detail to get to the root of the issues.  Dr. Coffey described the cell cycle as a Xerox machine, the phenomenon of transposons and genetic repeats as Indian Corn (in contrast to a non-aberrant genome, which he asserts is much more like yellow corn), even the early distinction between benign tumors which he described as “like a tangerine you can just pluck out” and malignant tumors which were messy, asymmetric, and look like crabs, hence the etymology of ‘cancer’ from the Greek for crab.

Dr. Coffey’s presentation was a perfect case study in the art of explaining what could undoubtedly be extremely technical and opaque science in an interesting an accessible way.  In addition, the colorful metaphors provided a bird’s eye view of the complexity in cancer research without getting too entrenched in the details.  This speech was a perfect primer for what lay ahead.  The AACR annual meeting is meant to be broad in scope with topics ranging from imaging to experimental therapeutics to advances in genetics and personalized medicine, as well as providing depth through poster presentations and breakout sessions.  While personalized medicine is my main area of personal interest, the meeting provided ample opportunities to get exposure to virtually all of the topics relevant to cancer.  With nearly 18,000 researchers from around the globe in attendance, there were sessions with attendance in the thousands, all the way down to more intimate ‘meet and greet’ sessions with attendance in the dozens.  This program is one example of the many available opportunities for undergraduates to get involved in research.  Many scientific meetings like the AACR Annual Meeting provide these sorts of opportunities for undergraduates to present original research in poster sessions as well as network with leading scientists in the field.  For students in science and engineering, the scientific research society Sigma Xi hosts a biannual event in RTP for students to present research, explore summer internship opportunities, and network with professionals in the field.  Here are other resources for opportunities for undergraduate presentation or journal publication.

Undergraduate Presentation Opportunities:
http://www.unc.edu/depts/our/symposia.html
http://www.cur.org/resources/students/presentation_opportunities/

List of Undergraduate Journals:
http://www.cur.org/resources/students/undergraduate_journals/