By Mike Pearson
FightingIllini.com
The Coaches vs. Cancer program is a nationwide collaboration between the American Cancer Society and the National Association of Basketball Coaches. This initiative leverages the personal experiences, community leadership, and professional excellence of coaches nationwide to increase cancer awareness and promote healthy living through year-round awareness efforts, fundraising activities, and advocacy programs. Since 1993, coaches have raised more than $100 million for the American Cancer Society. On Wednesday, January 23, Coach Brad Underwood will show his personal support for the program when his Fighting Illini host the Wisconsin Badgers at the State Farm Center.
Cancer statistics are staggering. More than 40 percent of Americans risk developing the dreaded disease, and the remaining 60 percent all know at least one person affected by cancer.
In developing a cure for cancer, the world's foremost biologists and chemists have led the charge, but University of Illinois professor and director of the Cancer Center at Illinois Dr. Rohit Bhargava says that University of Illinois researchers on the Urbana-Champaign campus are approaching the worldwide dilemma from a different angle.
"Biology provides a great understanding into cancer and chemistry provides us with some drugs to deal with cancer," Bhargava said. "But the one discipline that really allows us to take basic science like biology and chemistry and turn it into technology of treatments at low costs is engineering."
Though the Cancer Center at Illinois wasn't formally introduced until the summer of 2017, Bhargava says that the concept actually began at UIUC about a decade ago.
Dr. Rohit Bhargava, University of Illinois professor and director of the Cancer Center at Illinois.
"There was really no cancer center in the nation that focused on bringing engineering and technology into cancer research," he says. "The University of Illinois has put together a team of about 70 investigators who are funded by the government to try and work together. We also have an equal number of people who are doing cancer-related research, but they don't have explicit federal support to do a cancer-specific project. Working with our clinical partners, we intend to turn this campus' engineering prowess into something useful for people."
Bhargava proudly points to former UIUC faculty member Paul Lauterbur (1985-2007) for getting the ball rolling with his pioneering development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Lauterbur's groundbreaking technology gave doctors the ability to look deep inside the body and detect abnormal growth.
"Basic engineering and development in imaging has led to revolutionary advancements later on," said Bhargava. "Now our people are working on how to make a tumor in a dish; take a patient's tumor cells, grow them in a lab, and then make a treatment that will be suitable for that patient by doing basic engineering.
"Chemistry and science also play a big role, so we have a huge cadre of people here on our campus that synthesize new molecules. They're basic chemists who make molecules like we play with Legos."
However, it's not just fulltime faculty and staff members who are contributing to the effort. A sizeable number of UIUC students are participating as well through five different education programs that begin from high school and advance all the way up to a physician scientist.
"The idea is how do we turn cancer into a tool for motivating people's education," Bhargava said. "By the same token, how do we educate people who are not engineers or chemists or biologists, but who are cancer research specialists? How can we take their disciplines and bring it into cancer research?"
One of the programs that is Bhargava's personal favorites is called the Cancer Scholars Program, involving undergraduate students. Exceptional high school candidates are admitted into the Cancer Scholars Program and involved with a series of courses and organized research from the very first day they enter the university.
"Essentially, they will do about four years of research while they're on campus as undergraduates," he said. "So, after four years, not only do they come out with a great understanding of how their education is applied to a particular problem in the work, but they now have a chance to go into cancer research and actually contribute something."
Over a period of the last five years, there has never been a person who has declined the opportunity to join UIUC's Cancer Scholars Program.
"We've offered this to nearly 60 students and all of them have accepted," Bhargava said.
One of those individuals is Batavia senior Erin Tevonian, a bioengineering major who will earn her bachelor's degree this coming May.
"From the time I was a junior (at Batavia High), I knew that I wanted to do cancer research," Tevonian said. "I saw cancer affecting family members growing up and I wanted to make a difference. I was really interested in biology and did a lot of reading about cancer, about all the years of work that people have put in to curing the disease and some of the challenges that remain. The challenge of cancer research really appealed to me and I wanted to contribute to solving that challenge."
Dr. Bhargava taught Tevonian's initial class, covering the fundamentals of cancer biology, discussing the characteristics of the disease, and why no one has yet discovered a cure. She's since spent four years studying under Dr. Roy Dar, assistant professor with UIUC's bioengineering department.
"Combining basic math, physics and biology with the higher levels of electrical engineering and mechanical engineering allows us to have more of a holistic viewpoint," Tevonian said. "That helps us with collaborations and solving some of these complicated problems."
Does she look at cancer differently now?
"I definitely realize some of my naivety from high school, being like 'I'm going to solve cancer' to now better understanding the different sub fields within cancer research and the complexity that's involved. Patience is important, but the progress that's been made even in the last 10 years is really impressive to me. We have a lot of hope for the future of cancer research."
According to Bhargava, making people aware of cancer and the research surrounding the disease is extremely important, and he deeply appreciates the contribution intercollegiate athletics is making to help solve one of the world's biggest social problems.
"We don't pay attention to cancer until we or a loved one is diagnosed with it," he said. "Intercollegiate athletics has raised awareness on the patient side about doing early detection and being careful with our health. On the research side, it's bringing attention to the hard work that lots of people are doing. To the students, it's bringing hope and training them. Together, we can make an impact on something that affects so many of us."
To learn more about the Cancer Center at Illinois, log on to www.cancer.illinois.edu.
