December 23, 2020:

In a recent holiday post on his blog Holden the Line on Cancer, George Weiner, MD, director of the University of Iowa Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center, reflects on the resilience, creativity, and enduring commitment that has kept research collaborations strong throughout this tumultuous year. As one example, Dr. Weiner writes about the newly introduced Big Ten CRC Grand Rounds:

“One of the primary goals of an academic cancer center is to train the next generation of cancer clinicians and researchers. Our approach to such education has been changed, but not halted, by the pandemic. I continue to have weekly meetings with my research group by Zoom. In fact, my clinical research colleagues are more likely to participate virtually in these meetings now since they can do so from their offices or clinic and don’t have to walk to the other side of the medical center. I continue to meet weekly with graduate students in my laboratory. This has worked fairly well. It has become a standing joke that just about every Zoom meeting starts with a graduate student asking me to ‘enable screen sharing’ so we can review their data and plans together. Grand rounds and other conferences including tumor board discussions are held virtually as well. Not ideal but it works. As we all have gotten used to virtual conferences, we realized such meetings don’t need to be limited to a single institution. Holden suggested and organized the first Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium Grand Rounds that is a virtual meeting now held monthly. Typical attendance over the past few months has included around 100 researchers from multiple institutions. New collaborations between cancer centers in the Big Ten are starting to emerge from these discussions. Hopefully Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium Grand Rounds will continue post-pandemic and be seen as a silver lining that emerged from this very difficult time.” Read More