Research at Fox Chase »Graduate Student Programs »Russian Institute

Erica A. Golemis, PhD, Co-Chair, Supervisory Committee
Glenn F. Rall, PhD, Co-Chair, Supervisory Committee
Olga Favorova, PhD, DrSci, Co-Chair, Russian State Medical University, Moscow
Edna Cukierman, PhD, Committee Member
Roland L. Dunbrack, Jr., PhD, Committee Member
Dietmar J. Kappes, PhD, Committee Member
Vladimir M. Kolenko, MD, PhD, Committee Member
Ilya G. Serebriiskii, PhD, Student Liaison, Committee Member

In 1998, Fox Chase Cancer Center embarked on a novel partnership with the Russian State Medical University (RSMU) in Moscow to provide training at our Center for RSMU Masters and Ph.D. level students. This partnership, originally conceived by Erica Golemis at Fox Chase and Olga Favorova, Professor of Molecular Biology at RSMU, has provided internship opportunities for 28 RSMU students over these past years. With each passing year, the program has expanded to include not only more students, but also more affiliations with premier Russian research institutions. Despite the growing number of sister institutions, the matching and oversight processes are essentially the same: enthusiastic and talented students are selected by professors at the Russian institute; these students then select potential mentors at our Center based on common research interests. Final matches are made by the Supervisory Committee at Fox Chase, comprised of faculty from all three divisions. Students typically intern at Fox Chase for approximately 15 months, although a number of them have elected to continue their studies and pursue their Ph.D. research in the host laboratory. Soon after the students' arrival at Fox Chase, an Advisory Committee is formed for each student, consisting of their mentor and at least two other faculty members with similar research interests. These committees meet with the student twice a year to provide research guidance and to afford the student an opportunity to present their work throughout the internship. Each Advisory committee reports back to the Supervisory Committee.

The success of the initial Partner Program with Favorova and RSMU allowed for associations to be established with other high quality institutions in Russia. A program sponsored by Fox Chase and Moscow Engineering Physical Institute (MEPI) provides up to two students per year an opportunity to acquire skills in bioinformatics, software design, and protein modeling. A third affiliation with Smolensk State Medical Academy (SSMA) proved to be very fruitful in the past three years, and four students have already benefited from this partnership. We are also currently evaluating other institutions as prospective partners, including Kazan, Novosibirsk and Moscow State Universities. Several pilot students from these institutions are currently doing research at Fox Chase. To date, RSMU, MEPI, and SSMA students, and students from prospective partners, have interned in laboratories spanning a wide range of research interests ( G. Adams, P. Adams, A. Bellacosa, D. Broccoli, K. Campbell, J. Chernoff, A. Di Cristofano, R. Dunbrack, E.Jaffe, C.Jordan, A. Godwin, R.Hardy, E. Henske, V. Kolenko, M. Ochs, J. Peterson, G. Rall, H. Roder, L. Sigal, A.M. Skalka, J. Testa, K. Tew, D. Wiest, T. Yen, A. Yeung, and K. Zaret ). We anticipate that the number of students and Fox Chase faculty who will benefit from this program will continue to increase. As of December 2007, 11 students are working in research laboratories at Fox Chase; eight of them are currently pursuing their Ph.D. degrees. Of the 32 students who have completed their internships, all have elected to further their education in biomedical research, and many of these students have gone on to Ph.D. programs in the U.S., Europe or Russia. Collectively, these students have contributed to over thirty peer- reviewed manuscripts, and have presented their work at multiple international meetings. Specific information concerning their individual research projects can be found under each supporting faculty member's research overview.