Travel Fellows from 2009 – 2011
From left to right, Kilian Gust (2010), Amit Patel (2009), Peter O’Donnell (2009),
Heather Honore Goltz (2010), Steven Smith (2011), Sandip Prasad (2011),
Will Brandt (2010), Ken Nepple (2011), Meng Chen (2011)

John Quale Travel Fellowship Program

The Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network (BCAN) is pleased to announce that we have chosen the award winners for the 2011 John Quale Travel Fellowship. This $1,500 travel fellowship is intended to defray travel-related costs related to attending the 2011 Bladder Cancer Think Tank Meeting, which will be hosted by BCAN in San Diego, California this coming August. The travel fellowship is awarded to early career physicians and scientists.

The following young investigators have been awarded 2011 John Quale Travel Fellowships:

• Meng Chen, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of epidemiology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, presented on a potential genetic marker of susceptibility to bladder cancer, which also correlates with telomere length
• Kenneth Nepple, MD, a fellow in urologic oncology at Washington University in St. Louis, discussed hospital readmission rates (whether patients have to return to the hospital within 90 days) for patients after a radical cystectomy, and what factors might affect readmission rates
• Sandip Prasad, MD, a Society of Urologic Oncology Fellow at the University of Chicago, talked about identifying “hot spots” for bladder cancer – geographic areas where bladder cancer is more common than we would expect – and how we can compare those hot spots to what carcinogens people in that area might have been exposed to
• Steven Smith, MD, PhD, a pathology resident at the University of Michigan, presented on the potential use of molecular biology to identify which patients are likely to respond to chemotherapy

History of the Award

2010 Travel Fellows Andrew Feifer, Heather Honore Goltz,
William Brandt, and Kilian Gust

2010 was the second year that BCAN presented four young researchers with John Quale Travel Fellowship Awards to cover the cost of attending BCAN’s annual Think Tank meeting. These promising scientists also gave presentations at the August, 2010 meeting on their recent research:

• Andrew Feifer, MD, a second year fellow in urologic oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, presented on a survey examining chemotherapy use in bladder cancer patients;
• Heather Honorѐ Goltz, PhD, LMSW, a NIDDK KURe Scholar in the VA Health Services Research and Development Center of Excellence at the Michael E. DeBakay VA Medical Center, spoke about health literacy in bladder cancer patients;
• William Brandt, PhD, a post-doctoral fellow in Pathology at Johns Hopkins University, discussed efforts to target the Notch pathway in bladder cancer stem cells; and
• Kilian Gust, MD, a post-doctoral fellow at the Vancouver Prostate Centre, presented research on the differential expression of Notch receptors in bladder cancer.

BCAN hopes that continuing to fund programs like the Travel Fellowship Award and the BCAN Award for Bladder Cancer Research will encourage young investigators to pursue careers studying bladder cancer. Learn more about the young investigators who attended BCAN’s Think Tank.