Two high school graduates from the Young Women’s Leadership Charter School will be able to do hands-on research on Oncofertility this summer, thanks to President Obama’s stimulus money, the Chicago Tribune reported today.

The stimulus money is coming from the National Cancer Institute and will enable Ashley McKinney and Megan Romero to take part in the paid internship here in Teresa Woodruff’s lab at Northwestern University.

Melissa Resh, a teacher at the school, will also be doing research at the lab with money from the same stimulus package.

To read the story from the Chicago Tribune, click here: Stimulus cash aids Northwestern mentoring program.

Northwestern Memorial Hospital is hosting a half-day conference on Saturday, May 17th called ”State-of-the-Art Hysterectomy: The Robotic Surgical Option.”

Dr. Patrick Lowe will be one of the speakers at this event. He was one of the doctors who participated in the Oncofertility Saturday Academy, teaching students from the Young Women’s Leadership Charter School about oncofertility and surgery. Those who attended Dr. Lowe’s module were given the opportunity to operate a Da Vinci robotic surgery machine – the same machine used to perform minimally-invasive hysterectomies.

Dr. Patrick Lowe from Northwestern Memorial Hospital stands by as a student from the Oncofertility Saturday Academy tries her hands at the Da Vinci robotic surgery machine, sometimes used to perform hysterectomies. Photo by Tara S. Kerpelman

The event at the hospital will include lectures, demonstrations and a talk by a patient who underwent robotic surgery.

The conference start at 8:30am and it costs $20.

For more information, go to Northwestern Memorial’s site: Robotic Hysterectomy Event.

With the emergence of the new interdisciplinary field of the oncofertility, how can we expose, inspire, and support the future generations of oncofertility scholars? Consider the Oncofertility Saturday Academy (OSA) of Chicago science education program model. OSA Chicago is a collaborative effort between Northwestern University and Young Women’s Leadership Charter School initiated in 2007. OSA has created a dynamic access point to oncofertility for a diverse population of junior and senior high school girls. It is a two-year program that focuses on the basic science and clinical application of oncofertility. The program provides engaging and challenging Saturday learning modules, led by faculty, staff, and students of Northwestern University, facilitated in state-of-the-art laboratories and clinics (please visit, osa.northwestern.edu to view the entire OSA Chicago curriculum and video). OSA has already shown to have a positive impact on the lives of the participants by encouraging and preparing them to pursue undergraduate degrees in science and medicine. In fact, there are a total of 15 past participants who are now in college. All 15 of these young women are pursuing science, medical, or engineering degrees.  Will this science education program model inspire and support high school girls to become oncofertility scholars?