Partnerships with Minority-Serving Colleges

In 2011, NCI’s Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities (CRCHD) launched an initiative called Comprehensive Partnerships to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities, which partners minority-serving institutions and organizations with NCI-designated cancer centers to create long-term, stable collaborations focused on capacity building in research, training, and outreach, and to ensure the delivery of the latest advances in cancer care to racially and ethnically diverse communities. The goal is to build true partnerships, in which both organizations benefit.

One such partnership, involving the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) in Seattle and New Mexico State University (NMSU) at Las Cruces, provides minority students with cancer research internships at the cancer center. Noah Espinoza was one such student. In 2008, he was selected to participate in the prestigious Cancer Research Internship Program for Undergraduate Students at FHCRC. He had heard about the program during his senior year at NMSU, when Fred Hutchinson scientist Dr. Beti Thompson visited one of Espinoza's classes to talk about the internship opportunity. Learn more about Espinoza’s experience in the NCI Cancer Bulletin.

Cancer Center Partnerships with Minority-Serving Colleges

• Arizona Cancer Center with Northern Arizona University
• Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center with the University of Massachusetts Boston
• Fox Chase Cancer Center with Lincoln University in Pennsylvania
• Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center with New Mexico State University at Las Cruces
• Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, Los Angeles with Padres Contra El Cáncer 
• Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, Los Angeles with Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles
• Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center with the City College of New York
• Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute with the Ponce School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Puerto Rico
• Moores Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego with San Diego State University
• Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute with California State University, Fresno
• Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University with Howard University in Washington, D.C.
• The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center with the University of Puerto Rico
• University of Hawaii Cancer Center with the University of Guam
• University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center with North Carolina Central University
• Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center with Meharry Medical College in Tennessee
• Wake Forest Comprehensive Cancer Center with the North Carolina A&T State University

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