When sun starts to break heavy gray clouds in Finland it's time for Amazing Cancer Race - a finale of a problem based learning course CancerBio Summer School. I participated in the course five years ago, and since then organized it four consecutive years. Originally it was Juha's course, but Maral, my colleague and me every year added a twist and with Juha's support course grew in popularity.
Shortly, course revolves around hallmarks of cancer, proposed by Bob Weinberg & Doug Hanahan. Up to 20 students can participate and they are split in pairs. Each pair have to approach one hallmark, define problems in that field and open discussion with the rest of the group. On each session an expert in the field is invited to maintain levels of discussion and fill in scientific facts if needed.
During the course each session is graded by the students and point collected on your activity and presentation are used later for your line up in Amazing Cancer Race (ACR), which is a grad finale of the course.
We developed and tuned over past five years Amazing Cancer Race. Idea is to incorporate science, healthy activity and creativity into one competition. Students run from one pit-stop to another, and location of each pit-stop is reveled after decoding a riddle-map. Once on a pit-stop you can play a game based on cards developed by us, which are linked to hallmarks of cancer and override difficulties that were placed in front of you by previous teams, or you can block team that arrives after you, or you can buy time... In addition to that on each pit-stop you have two types of games to play: one requires brain activity another is more physical - you can choose, and on some pit-stops you have to actually do something special.
Some teams were creative and made costumes for the race...
This year Juha and I were on a pit-stop that was named Provocative questions. National Cancer Institute (NCI) has a list of provocative questions (PQ), current 12 are here. Aim of these questions is to address and tackle some specific topics difficult to resolve, or topic that would need additional attention. In times like these, when scientific funding is scarce and difficult to get we thought that this year on our pit-stop students have to choose one question among these 12 and propose more specific aim of their research, suggest methodology and last but not least, highlight impact of their research. All that in 20 minutes... Tough and challenging, but they had prior opportunity to read PQs.
It was really interesting to participate in discussions and see how many times beautiful ideas can be born out of pressure.
... inspired by their research. NHL or Non-Hodgkin lymphoma?
The most frequently chosen question was about studying properties of cells from a pre-malignant field, usually surrounding cancers, in order to develop strategies to inhibit the development of future cancer. One of the answers was different from others; it combined biology and mathematical modeling. I loved the idea of developing a model based on biological data. Their concept was not polished or did not go deep into biology, but still it was a refreshing view.
Second question that was picked commonly investigated mechanisms of action if standard-of-care classic therapies would complement immunotherapy. It is interesting to note how students aimed for questions that are not heavily researched here in Helsinki.
One team choose to tackle cancers, which can be dormant or indolent for long periods. This topic is extremely interesting because it is unknown which mechanisms maintain these stable states. Their approach involved developing animal model for studying progression of cancer and dissection of cancer surrounding/neighboring tissues, which may influence these long dormant periods. I would add that this topic if approached with cutting-edge single cell -omics techniques and combined with computer modeling could soon provide some answers.
A special guest this year was Dr.Laura Soucek. She was on another pit-stop judging students when they had to pitch their project either to a scientific committee or to two rich ladies. Many teams chose two rich ladies, not thinking that rich ladies may be more difficult to persuade than scientific committee. Some biological questions can be a challenge to explain in a more general way. This was extremely valuable eye opener to me; we all are with our heads many times deep into science forgetting that science should reach wide audience, and not be exclusive for academics. All tax payers have right to be informed and involved in most recent scientific findings.