Advocacy, Mentoring, and Equity in Cancer Research [Video]

In this episode, we hear from Dr. Khadijah Mitchell, an Assistant Professor of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at Fox Chase Cancer Center and a former NCI fellow. Dr. Mitchell discusses her research on lung cancer and health disparities. She highlights the importance of the menthol cigarette ban in reducing health disparities and shares her experience in advocacy work. Dr. Mitchell shares details on books she has co-authored that emphasize the significance of inclusive instruction and mentoring in science. She provides advice for those interested in careers in cancer health disparities and more.

Show Notes:

Khadijah A. Mitchell, Ph.D. Fox Chase Cancer Center Office of Community Outreach What Inclusive Instructors Do? Principles and Practices for Excellence in College Teaching (book) Enhancing Inclusive Instruction (book)

Ad: NCI Data Science Training

NCI Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis

NCI Sallie Rosen Kaplan Program

Your Turn Recommendations:

LEGO for Adults

For All Mankind TV series on Apple TV

TRANSCRIPT

Oliver Bogler

Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute where we explore all the different ways people fight cancer and we hear their stories. I’m your host, Oliver Bogler from NCI’s Center for Cancer Training. Today we’re talking to Dr. Khadijah Mitchell, Assistant Professor in the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program at Fox Chase Cancer Center and Temple University in Philadelphia about her work, her professional engagement and launching a research program in an academic setting. Listen through to the end of the show to hear our guests make an interesting recommendation and where we invite you to take your turn.

Dr. Mitchell, welcome.

Khadijah A. Mitchell

So thank you so much, Dr. Bogler, for the invitation.

Oliver Bogler

So you joined Fox Chase in July, 2023 to pursue your research on cancer health disparities. What prompted the move?

Khadijah A. Mitchell

Well, previously I was an assistant professor at a small liberal arts college and there I balanced my time with research as well as teaching. And it was just the natural evolution as my research program grew, I knew I had to shift to a research institution that would accommodate future directions that my research was going in. And so here, I’m really fortunate that we, because I’m at a comprehensive cancer center, designated by the NCI. We have an Office of Outreach and Engagement, and a lot of what I do engages underrepresented populations. And so to have that research and infrastructure to allow my work to go in any direction was really appealing to me.

Oliver Bogler

Please tell us more about your research.

Khadijah A. Mitchell

Oh, sure. So recently, I’ve focused my energy on lung cancer because I think a lot that we can consider lung cancer an underdog of the cancer community. We have a lot of stigma associated with this particular cancer type. So I think that there’s not as large of a survivor advocate community as you may see with breast or prostate cancer. So more people actually pass away unfortunately from this type of cancer than some of those other ones can bind and we know a huge risk factor is smoking and so I have an interest in that particular type of environmental exposure but also radon which is odorless colorless gas that causes lung cancer and so right now I’m really interested in the environmental exposome and how that impacts our genome so thinking about these interactions. And, you know, I think that one powerful thing about the radon is we see that that is actually the leading cause of lung cancer in never smokers. And so I hope that these projects will help us to find either new smoking-related or radon-related biomarkers that could be risk factors and that we can change, for example, lung cancer screening guidelines and policies that will help a lot of people.

Oliver Bogler

You used the term exposome. It’s not a term I’ve heard before, but I guess it’s another “omic” . What is the exposome?

Khadijah A. Mitchell

Exactly, so that’s a great question before I delved into this I also did not know that So we have internal and external exposure and it literally is the sum collections of all your exposures. So whether it’s chronic or acute and how that changes your biology. I’ve looked at genomics transcriptomics proteomics in the past and I never have integrated this exposome. So really excited about where that’s going.

Oliver Bogler

So the exposome is a sort of, how should I think about it? Insults to the body like radon you mentioned, or I guess ultraviolet light or toxins. But is it also beneficial things like vitamins or is that not considered to be part of the exposome?

Khadijah A. Mitchell

It is considered to be…