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Dear Friends:
It is hard to believe we are half-way through 2022. We hope all of you and your families remain healthy as we all learn to live with COVID-19 and resume activities at a pre-pandemic level. The work of ARGO and GCDI continues to grow and expand, and we hope you will take a moment to read through the recent GCDI-ARGO activities. We are happy to announce our grant application for the NIH D43-Expanding Cancer Research Capacity in Nigeria with Team Science was accepted. A meeting of the Executive Committee was held in Lagos in June. Peter Kingham was able to join us in Lagos while other members from NY joined by zoom. Please take a moment to review all the recent news below.
We are delighted to be able to once again plan for an annual ARGO symposium in Nigeria that will take place this September. We expect to host visiting faculty from MSKCC and look forward to welcoming all to Ife once again. More information will be forthcoming on the program.
Warm regards,
Peter and Isaac
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ARGO & GCDI Strategic Planning Session Summary
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The Global Cancer Disparities Initiatives (GCDI) program and the African Research Group for Oncology (ARGO) held their third annual strategic planning meeting in April. Participants included faculty from North America, as well as Nigeria and Kenya. The meeting was a hybrid format with some participating in person at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York and others virtually via zoom. Dr. Peter Kingham, Director of the GCDI program, welcomed Dr. Vikki Mango as the new Assistant Director of GCDI.
The meeting was divided into three sessions: Breast cancer, Colorectal cancer management and a general strategic planning session.
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It looked at current studies and themes related to establishing strategies for breast and colorectal cancer management in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) as well as overarching collaborations between ARGO and GCDI and the potential expansion to new countries.
Further discussion focused on the creation of disease-based working groups. The senior leadership is composed of Drs. Isaac Alatise (OAUTHC), Peter Kingham (MSKCC), Vikki Mango (MSKCC), and Professor Fatimah Abdulkareem (University of Lagos). The working group leadership teams are listed below.
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Training/Education
- Dr. Dianna Ng (MSKCC)
- Dr. Leye Omisore (OAUTHC)
Breast Cancer
- Dr. Marcia Edelweiss (MSKCC)
- Dr. Lekan Olasehinde (OAUTHC)
Colorectal Cancer
- Professor Samuel Olatoke (University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital)
- Dr. Anna Dare (University of Toronto)
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Cervical Cancer
- Dr. Kara Long (MSKCC)
- Dr. Ibrahim Awowole (OAUTHC)
Clinical Care (Nursing/Pharmacy)
- Dr. Margaret Barton-Burke (MSKCC)
- Dr. Esther Afolabi (OAUTHC)
HPB Surgery
- Dr. Peter Kingham (MSKCC)
- Dr. Isaac Alatise (OAUTHC)
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D43 Expanding Cancer Research Capacity in Nigeria with Team Science
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MSK-GCDI received the above D43 NIH grant in March of this year. Together with ARGO, they have launched the program with the first Executive Committee meeting having just been held in Lagos, Nigeria in June. This program will support Nigerian post-doctoral candidates in fortifying skills in cancer research training to strengthen research capacity for individuals and institutions, while also enhancing broader relationships at national, regional, and global levels. D43 Scholars will be invited to participate in a one-year postdoctoral research position at the MSK Cancer Center in New York after which they will have an additional year of mentored research at the applicant’s home institution in Nigeria. These trainees will become vital faculty members and mentors for future cancer-focused training in Nigeria. Applications have been invited from the fields of epidemiology, nursing, behavioral sciences such as psycho-oncology, molecular biology, and statistics. GCDI and ARGO anticipate two post-doctoral positions will be available per year over the next three years.
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NCAT Scholar Program Update
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The Nigerian Cancer Research Training (NCAT) Program, supported by a grant from the Oak Foundation, is a multi-pronged training program utilizing workshops, coursework, hands-on research, and mentorship in an effort to strengthen cancer research capacity in Nigeria and provide investigators with the skills needed to lead independent oncology research programs. Long-term, this program will bolster research capacity in Nigeria, allowing regional scientists to contribute to the expanding knowledge base of cancer care and treatment in Nigeria. The program will further fortify and expand long-term research partnerships between Nigerian and U.S. oncology researchers.
The current cohort of eleven scholars just completed their third workshop in Lagos. The program focused on study designs, working with Reference Manager, utilizing databases, and ensuring quality assurance. The workshop was facilitated by Drs. Isaac Alatise, Peter Kingham, Titilope Adeyanju, and Israel Owoade. A hybrid model was utilized with faculty from New York participating via Zoom. Applications are currently being reviewed for the second cohort of scholars. We look forward to announcing accepted scholars in our Fall quarterly newsletter.
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From Left to right: Dr. Mohammed, Mrs. Avwioro, and Dr. Dim.
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GCDI Surgical Oncology Fellow in Nigeria
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Shilpa Murthy, MD, MPH MSKCC’s International Surgical Oncology Global Cancer Disparities Fellow is currently in Nigeria working with Dr. Isaac Alatise leading two studies “Building Capacity for Early Diagnosis of Colorectal Cancer Through a Comprehensive Colonoscopy Training Program in Nigeria” and “Developing an Early Diagnosis Program for Bowel Cancer in Nigeria.” Dr. Murthy spent time at MSKCC prior to transitioning to OAUTHC where she will finish her Fellowship in Fall 2022. Dr. Murthy brings considerable global experience working at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland
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where she worked on premature mortality outcomes and contributed to the WHO Report on Cancer. She was a Lancet Commissioner on Global Cancer Surgery part I and now part II for the Lancet Oncology Journal. She obtained a Master of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and was a research fellow at the Center for Surgery and Public Health/Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston Massachusetts from 2013-2015. During her time at Harvard, she worked in Rwanda with the University of Rwanda Department of Surgery
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to implement two randomized controlled educational trials related to breast cancer care, assisted in development of national cancer guidelines with the Ministry of Health, and implemented several surgical education programs for medical students and residents. She completed her general surgery training at Indiana University and a colorectal fellowship at John Goligher Colorectal Unit, Leeds Teaching Hospitals in England which was sponsored by the Royal College of Surgeons England.
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As of May 16th, 2022, all the non-NIH funded studies have been successfully transferred back to Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex (OAUTHC) for sponsorship. As part of this initiative, the GCDI and ARGO teams worked together to transition the REDCap databases associated with the non-NIH funded studies onto the OAU server. In this capacity, MSKCC will no longer serve as the sponsor and primary data coordinating site for these studies. However, they will be able to access identified data within the OAU REDCap databases in order to assist with QA monitoring through a data transfer agreement executed on June 16, 2022. This successful transition marks an important milestone for the growth and expansion of the GCDI-ARGO collaboration.
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Joint MSK-ARGO Research Training in Nigeria
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On Saturday, June 11th, 2022, GCDI's clinical research team (composed of Cristina Olcese, Rivka Kahn, Grace Fitzgerald and Naqiya Choonawala) traveled to Nigeria for the first time to conduct Clinical Research Training at Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex in Ife, Nigeria. The training was conducted over four days and included participation from 30 research assistants representing 10 different hospitals.
The primary objectives of this training were to increase understanding of MSKCC's and OAUTHC’s regulatory policies, procedures, and compliance. Additionally, we sought to build and fortify new relationships amongst the team members at MSKCC, OAUTHC and other participating sites within ARGO.
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The first three days involved lots of interactive presentations from the MSKCC GCDI team on Regulatory Compliance, ARGO standard operating procedures (SOPs), Deviations, Informed Consent and Eligibility, Quality Assurance, and REDCap Database Review. On the third day, Dr. Owoade, program manager of ARGO, led a presentation on the regulations and policies of conducting clinical research at OAUTHC and reinforced the roles and responsibilities of the Institutional Review Board and Ethical Review Committee. On the final day, all the research assistants were broken out into study-associated small groups. The groups reviewed the aims and objectives of their studies and discussed the processes and nuances at their different locations. The MSKCC GCDI team was able to better understand some of the challenges the research assistants faced while managing each of their studies and were able to discuss ways to better support them moving forward.
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The ARGO team also educated the MSKCC GCDI team on Nigerian culture. Each day of the research training, MSKCC GCDI members were introduced to Nigerian food, language, and clothes. They tried Nigerian delicacies such as Pepper soup (Spicy catfish soup), Puff Puff (Spicy fried dough balls), and Swallow (mashed yam that is dipped into a soup made of melon seeds and swallowed without chewing!). The MSKCC GCDI team also learned some words and phrases in Yoruba and listened to Nigerian music during breaks in the training. The ARGO team was also gracious enough to gift the MSKCC GCDI team members with tailor-made clothing with Nigerian patterns and prints.
Overall, the training proved to be a successful bi-directional learning experience for all! The GCDI team would like to give a special thanks to their gracious hosts at OAUTHC for a warm welcome to Nigeria!
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