The apprentices
Training the next generation
By Robert Levy
Fellow Aundrea Oliver, MD (right), pursues her scientific interests in the laboratory of J. Dirk Iglehart, MD.
The spirit of Dana-Farber lives in the chief of a research laboratory at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey. And in a scientist at Novartis Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, Mass. And in an up-and-coming clinical researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston. And, in fact, in scientists and doctors at hospitals, research institutes, pharmaceutical companies, and biotechnology firms around the world.
Dana-Farber's legacy rests not solely with the patients treated in its clinics or the advances made in its laboratories, but also with its professional progeny — the thousands of cancer physicians and investigators who trained at the Institute and have gone on to careers elsewhere or joined Dana-Farber as full-time clinical and scientific staff members.
That has certainly been the case with the alumni who trained in DFCI's Women's Cancers Program (WCP) as oncology fellows, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students. Whether they work at a laboratory bench, a hospital clinic, or both, they're applying the skills and scientific sensibility developed at Dana-Farber to advance the understanding and treatment of women's cancers.
The appeal of an apprenticeship at DFCI and its partnering hospitals isn't hard to appreciate. "For a young scientist or physician with an interest in women's cancers, training at Dana- Farber presents an opportunity to interact with members of an extraordinary research community," says Women's Cancers Program Director J. Dirk Iglehart, MD, who is also chief of Surgical Oncology at Brigham and Women's Hospital. "The technology available at this institution and its affiliates, as well as the caliber of people to collaborate with, are almost unrivaled."
Training opportunities within the WPC take several forms. Postdoctoral fellows — "postdocs," for short — and graduate students work in individual labs under the direction of a more experienced researcher, usually for two to five years. They are sponsored, and their salary paid, by outside organizations and foundations, an arrangement known as extramural funding. At any one time, there are about 300 postdocs and graduate students at work in DFCI laboratories preparing for scientific careers.
Clinical fellows, by contrast, enroll in a two- to three-year program that provides experience in both the patient-care and research sides of cancer medicine. In the first year, fellows, who hold either an MD or MD/PhD degree and have completed their hospital residencies, treat patients under the supervision of physicians at Dana-Farber, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and MGH. Then, for one or more years, they work on individual research projects in either a clinic or laboratory. Fourteen new fellows are enrolled in the joint program each year.
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