Recently my colleague and office buddy, Nadia Johnson, was featured in the Spring 2012 issue of Inquiry, Northwestern University’s School of Education and Social Policy’s (SESP) quarterly magazine, in an article entitled, “Higher Education Student Nadia Johnson: Motivating Girls to Study Science.” Nadia is the Co-Director for the Women’s Health Science Program (WHSP) and a graduate student at Northwestern pursuing a master’s degree in SESP’s Higher Education Administration and Policy program. Inquiry featured her as a student and Northwestern staff member who is making a difference in the lives of young women through science education.

As the Co-Director for WHSP, Nadia runs the Oncofertility Saturday Academy, along with programs in cardiology, physical science, and infectious diseases. The programs focus on bringing in girls who are under-represented in science and medicine, namely African American and Latina women, for a series of workshops open to high school juniors and seniors.  According to Nadia, “ When it comes to teaching science, we must better understand how boys and girls experience the science setting differently and how we can manage this so that girls can get just as far as boys.”

This past November, the WHSP program received the prestigious Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering demonstrating the enormous impact this program has had on young women in science. For Nadia, the formula is simple, “If you excel in something and you have praise, you tend to go down that path,” as was the case for her. She also emphasizes the importance of having young women mentored by female scientists and clinicians so they see firsthand, women who are working and exceling in science fields.

Not one to rest on her morals, Nadia is using her graduate research to improve the WHSP program and make the experience not only significant for the high school students, but also for program mentors (health care providers, medical students, faculty, etc…) who also participate.  Regardless of what the data shows, Nadia knows from experience that these kinds of programs, are a win-win for everyone involved.  Read, “Higher Education Student Nadia Johnson: Motivating Girls to Study Science.”

By Nadia Johnson, Co-Director of the Oncofertility Saturday Academy

On Saturday, February 18^th, 31 high school girls hailing from six different local Chicago high schools celebrated the culmination of the sixth annual Oncofertility Saturday Academy (OSA) with a family day and graduation event. OSA is the flagship academy of the Women’s Health Science Program, the award-winning science education program that aims to inspire high school girls from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds to pursue careers in science and medicine. OSA consists of a junior academy (JOSA) geared toward laboratory sciences, and a senior academy (SOSA) geared toward clinical sciences. Each academy includes weekly homework assignments, and three on-campus days filled with hands-on laboratory or clinical activities, workshops on such topics as sexual health and applying to medical school, and panel discussions with students or professionals in the field.

During family day, students demonstrate how much they have learned during the five-week program by presenting a capstone project, and rotating through stations that cover some of the academy topics with their families. For example, the SOSA students take their parents’ blood pressure (a skill they learned during the “Doctor for a Day” session) and the JOSA students show their parents how female fertility can be preserved through the use of follicle isolation and preservation in alginate beads (a technique pioneered by the Woodruff and Shea labs, that they learn about during the “Regulation of Ovarian Function” session).

Graduation follows family day, and is a chance for everyone – parents, siblings, and friends of the OSA students, and the over 100 OSA volunteers – to celebrate the accomplishments of the girls who were motivated and dedicated enough to complete homework assignments every week, and get up extra early on Saturdays to attend the on-campus all-day sessions. Each student gives a short speech before accepting her certificate and OSA patch. One student, a senior at Roberto Clemente High School, started her speech with: “I am very honored to be part of this program, this is the first year that it was opened to Chicago Public Schools [so] I am fortunate to be here.” Up until this year, the OSA program was only available to students from the Young Women’s Leadership Charter School. With the help of many teachers and advisors throughout the Chicago Public School system, the program leaders were able to offer the program to other qualified students this year; in addition to Clemente and Young Women’s, OSA student hailed from four other schools: Kenwood Academy, King College Prep, Lindblom Math and Science Academy, and Instituto Health and Science Career Academy.

Many other students commented on their favorite experiences during the academy in their graduation speeches. Several SOSA students remarked that using the da Vinci surgical robot, a $1.5 million system used for minimally invasive gynecologic procedures, during the “Oncofertility & Surgery” session, was their favorite part of OSA. Most of the students thanked their mentors – JOSA girls were partnered with scientist mentors and SOSA girls we paired with first year medical students. The girls were proud of what they had accomplished, and recounted their experiences during the program with a mixture of gratitude and amazement. One student, a senior at Young Women’s Leadership Charter School, concluded her graduation speech with a quote from author Sarah Caldwell: “Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can – There will always come a time in your life, when you will be grateful that you did.”

It may appear that the OSA program is designed to teach high school girls about cancer, reproductive biology, and oncofertility, but the program strives to teach so much more than that. It is a program designed to empower young women with knowledge about their own bodies; a program with over 100 university staff, student, and faculty volunteers, who serve as role models and mentors during the program; a program looking to change the face of science and medicine. OSA is a program that takes young women who are willing to learn, and hopes to turn them into the scientists, physicians and leaders of tomorrow.

It is only January and already the Oncofertility Saturday Academies (OSA) are off to a busy start. Last weekend, Mary Zelinski, PhD, who heads one of the Oncofertility Consortium‘s research projects, launched this year’s Oregon academy at the Oregon Primate Research Center (ONPRC). A group of 10 high school students comprised of eight girls and two boys got an overview of oncofertility and a tour of the research center. The students come from different schools, two of them driving up to an hour to attend the Saturday programs.

In addition to a tour of the primate center, the OSA students performed hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining on sectioned ovaries. This coming weekend, they will have the opportunity to view these sections under a microscope. H&E staining is widely used in biological research as it stains the cell nucleus blue and other structures a pink or red color.  This year, the Oregon OSA will meet in the newly completed Science Learning Lab at the ONPRC. The educational research lab, supported by a generous grant from a private donor, can accommodate up to 24 students and will greatly expand the opportunities available for visitors to interact with Primate Center researchers. An open house will be held tomorrow, Friday, January 27^th and will provide the OSA students a place to learn about oncofertility and basic science research over the next few weeks.

Simultaneously, tomorrow is the launch of the Chicago OSA program with juniors and seniors in high school from five schools in the Chicagoland area. In the next few weeks we will, continue to share more about both of these exceptional programs, and the OSA programs at the University of Pennsylvania and University of California at San Diego.

In case you haven’t heard about the Cancer Smashers, you must continue reading and get to know this fantastic group of young people banning together to raise money to eradicate cancer. Let me begin by telling you who they are and what they’re all about. Then we’ll get into all the cool things that they do to raise money and awareness for cancer research.

For starters, Cancer Smashers is a unique group of kids ranging in age from 10 years old to 19 years old who joined forces in 2011 to raise money and awareness for cancer research.  Their goal is to help promote the H Foundation, an all-volunteer group founded by businesspeople in the western suburbs of Chicago that decided they could make a difference in the fight against cancer, and the Goombay Bash, an annual cancer fundraiser held in downtown Chicago. Money raised by the Cancer Smashers and the H Foundation goes directly to cancer research and funds work being done at Northwestern University’s Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The Cancer Smashers help out by doing a variety of activities from assisting at events to building floats for parades or simply by being a support system to someone who is diagnosed with cancer.  Most recently, the Cancer Smashers came to the Woodruff Lab at Northwestern University to spend one-day learning about scientific research through lab exercises, such as extracting DNA from strawberries and also making alginate beads. Founder and Chair of Cancer Smashers, Beth Tischler, thought it was important for the kids to see exactly where the money they raise is going to, by visiting the Woodruff Lab and participating in some of the work the researchers do. Nadia Reynolds and Cathryn Smeyers, members of the Woodruff Lab and organizers of the Oncofertility Saturday Academy (OSA), participated in the event explaining, “The kids were really enthusiastic and excited to be a part of the research that’s being done here at Northwestern.”

What’s up next for the Cancer Smashers? For the week of January 23-27, the school’s Student Council will be selling paper “fists” for only $1.00. The buyer of the fist will personalize it by writing the name of a person who has been affected by cancer that they would like to honor. The fist will then be displayed on the walls of the school of their choice. The school district that sells the most fists is the winner!! To learn more about the Cancer Smashers and watch some videos about them, go to www.cancersmashers.com. You can also see them in action this Friday on CBS 2 news. Make sure you check it out!

Recently there has been a lot of attention brought to the concept of collaboration in academia, specifically in the sciences. Gone are the days (at least in our niche) where disciplines drew a dividing line in the sand – scientists keep to one side of the room, humanities, you go play in the other corner, etc… We understand that there cannot be one without the other and the more we can begin to build a “common language,” the better off we will be as researchers, academics, students and all around everyday people.

One of the many areas that the Oncofertility Consortium has implemented a collaborative paradigm is in the Oncofertility Saturday Academies (OSA) held throughout the country. Young women in high school from diverse backgrounds are engaged in the basic sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. We open up our lab and say, “please come in, we’d like to show you what we’re doing and teach you how to be a better scientist too.”

Some areas we focus on in our Saturday Academy along with lab work are the ethical, social, legal and religious implications of oncofertility research. Dr. Laurie Zoloth, Oncofertility Consortium member and Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Northwestern University, has been a key component of the Ethics curriculum in OSA over the last 5 years.  According to Dr. Zoloth, “one of the most important things about doing research in reproductive health is thinking about the implications for human societies, human communities and the ethical implications that each individual faces.”

Dr. Zoloth and her students put together a 2-hour course for the young women, introducing them to basic definitions, theory and a case-based method of ethical decision-making in order to demonstrate the complicated and important questions that oncofertility raises. Dr. Zoloth says, “the attempt of our section is to broaden their understanding of the competing and sharply different moral arguments that attend to this research so that they know what the basic definitions, initial conversations, and arguments that have been made to objections raised from religion and moral philosophy are to this kind of research.”

At the Oncofertility Consortium, we believe that it is imperative that the future of science be a collaborative initiative and this is the basis through which we developed our national OSA program 5 years ago. According to Dr. Zoloth, “the complex decisions that are invoked by their [research] have to be apart of their science as well. So we teach [the girls] right along with the science, so they’ll understand how intertwined the work of a scientist is with the concerns of their society.”

Stay tuned for Part 2…

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The last two weekends saw graduation events from Oncofertility Saturday Academies more than 2,000 miles apart. On February 26, the academy based out of Oregon Health & Science University graduated 10 freshmen through senior high school students. The young men and women in the program spent multiple Saturday mornings this winter with Mary Zelinski, PhD, learning about fertility and cancer, practicing surgical techniques on fruit, and discussing ethical issues in oncofertility. The students also met with a 24 year-old leukemia survivor who preserved her fertility with egg banking.  Though her fertility had been preserved, the survivor shared the continuing dilemmas she faces as a cancer survivor, including what to tell potential boyfriends about her fertility.

As Oregon Health & Science University is a worldwide center for research on non-human primates, Dr. Zelinski provided the 2011 Oncofertility Saturday Academy students with the opportunity to perform an ultrasound on a pregnant female monkey, an opportunity that very few scientists ever get to experience. In the last week of their academy, the Oregon students had a busy day that included making alginate beads, acting as a physician on oncofertility case studies, and presenting a final poster on a topic in oncofertility.

Just one week later, the Chicago Oncofertility Saturday Academy held it’s final events for students and their families, called Family Oncofertility Saturday Academy. The day this past weekend included rotations through laboratory activities and provided the junior and senior high school girls with an opportunity to share their knowledge with family members. A ceremony later that evening included the graduation of thirty-two high school girls and a keynote speech by Andresse St. Rose, PhD, from the American Association of University Women, who studies barriers for women in the sciences and develops recommendations to increase these numbers. The standing-room only event provided students and their parents with the opportunity to celebrate their experiences.

The Oncofertility Saturday Academy has provided the students in Oregon and Chicago with exciting experiences they can look back on for years to come. While these programs have finished and the coordinators are (hopefully) taking a much-deserved break, the University of Pennsylvania oncofertility education program has just begun its own 6-week program.  We will continue to update you on the progress of these 10 girls throughout its session.

Oncofertility Summer Research Experience 2009

With support from the federal stimulus package Northwestern received from the National Cancer Institute, two teachers and two undergraduates gained hands-on experience in a working lab devoted to providing new fertility options for cancer patients!

The money allowed Northwestern to bring relevant lab activities to teachers around the country and bring girls through the pipeline toward careers in science.

This video gives you an idea of what the experience was like. Check out the job summary to see if you or someone you know would be interested in doing it next summer:

http://www.osep.northwestern.edu/osep/summerfellowship/
http://www.research.northwestern.edu/

Recently, WBEZ Chicago’s Eight Forty-Eight came to the Oncofertility Consortium to interview Dr. Woodruff about fertility preservation for cancer patients.  While the interview mainly discussed new techniques that will provide hope for cancer patients facing potential infertility, the interview also discussed the Illinois Women’s Health Registry and the Oncofertility Saturday Academy.

From the WBEZ website:

Last year, Dr. Teresa Woodruff won a $21 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to create the Oncofertility Consortium. There she hopes to develop new fertility treatments for people who have undergone treatment for cancer. While many people can survive a cancer diagnosis, the treatments can destroy fertility. Dr. Woodruff runs The Woodruff Lab at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, and also runs the Oncofertility Saturday Academy. It brings young women from a small high school on Chicago’s South Side into the lab to learn basic biology and clinical medicine.

The audio of the interview is included!

Eight Forty-Eight Interview

The OSA counterpart in San Diego, the Be WiSE (Better Education for Women in Science and Engineering) Young Women in Cancer Research Oncofertility Academy, was highlighted in the Del Mar Times. Twelve young women representing 10 high schools were at the event on July 25 to learn about Oncofertility and to hear from an ovarian cancer survivor.

Read more about it in the article by Gina McGalliard here.