KU cancer researcher creates opportunities and community for honors students

Navya Singh’s summer was unique, even by COVID standards. You wouldn’t know it by sight but sitting alone in her room on any given summer morning the rising sophomore (‘c 24) opened her laptop to virtually help prestigious medical researchers in their decadelong study of cancer treatment outcomes.

Singh’s remote research was part of an internship created by University Honors Program alumni Ron Chen, MD, MPH. Chen (‘c 99) is now the chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Kansas Medical Center.

After graduating with a degree in Biochemistry, Chen earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He continued his studies in Boston and by 2009 had also completed his residency program and Master of Public Health. Prior to his appointment at KUMC, he served as a faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“I really benefitted from a lot of research opportunities when I was at KU, including getting the summer undergrad research fellowship,” Chen said. “So when I came back as the chair of a department, I was trying to figure out a way to give back and create such summer research opportunities for current KU students.”

The opportunity he settled on was a study that involved data collected from 1,500 prostate cancer patients. The participants were enrolled at the time they were first diagnosed around 10 years ago. Chen and his team analyze the patients’ medical records annually in hopes of finding patterns in treatment outcomes, such as success and recurrence rates. They’re also looking at other long-term health indicators and side effects to improve survivors’ quality of life.

“From my perspective, the work that the students did was incredibly helpful because we have all this information but they're all on pieces of paper. We need students to help us go through and manually collect the actual data on the medical records,” Chen said.

Beyond the research element, this project also paired students with a primary mentor in the cancer center. Singh and the five other undergraduate students in the internship met weekly mentors to talk about their plans after graduation. These connections were even more meaningful given the ways social distancing and hospital capacity has limited students’ opportunities to shadow clinicians.

“Even though Dr. Chen wasn’t my primary mentor in my research project, I received multiple opportunities to talk one-on-one with him throughout my internship,” said Singh. “He has been an excellent resource for me, both in terms of his knowledge about the medical field as well as factors that might make me a better candidate for medical school, and overall a better physician-scientist in the future.”

Almost anyone who has met Dr. Chen wouldn’t be surprised to learn of his success in connecting with students so quickly after his return to KU. Beyond KUMC, he’s found community in the field of radiation oncology through his involvement in national organizations. Chen has served on committees at the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Society for Radiation Oncology and is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute Cancer Spectrum. He credits the habit of getting involved, in part, to his time in the Honors Program.

“I feel the Honors Program was a group of students, teachers, and mentors that really made KU smaller for me. And I really was able to get advice and guidance through my time at KU. Not only did it educate me, but it provided me the direction I needed to then be successful afterwards in medical school and now in my career,” Chen said.