Several UF Health Cancer Center members and trainees were honored for their research during the University of Florida College of Medicine’s Celebration of Research, held Feb. 12-13.
Poster Winners
Alex H. Yoon, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of surgery, won the New Opportunity Award for Research Related to Health Disparities, Community Health or Inclusion in the early-stage investigator category for his poster, titled “Isomeric Forms of Plasma Tocopherol and Lung Cancer Risk Among Low-Income Americans.” Yoon is a member of the UF Health Cancer Center’s Cancer Control and Population Sciences research program.
Jordan McKean, M.D., a resident in the department of surgery, won the Outstanding Poster Award in Basic and Translational Sciences in the postdoctoral category for her poster, titled “Leptin Expression and Cachexia in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma.” McKean is part of the 2023-25 cohort of the UF Health Cancer Center’s Team-based Interdisciplinary Cancer Research Training (TICaRT) program.
Mahya Aghaee, Ph.D., a postdoctoral associate in the department of medicine, won the Outstanding Poster Award in Basic and Translational Sciences in the postdoctoral category for her poster, titled “Mathematical Discovery of New Targets and Optimization of Therapies: Application to Canine Melanoma.”
Awards & Honors
Zhijian Qian, Ph.D., received the UF College of Medicine’s Outstanding Research Scientist Award in Basic or Translational Sciences. Qian is the Pierre Chagnon Professor of Cancer Research in the division of hematology and oncology and co-leader of the UF Health Cancer Center’s Mechanisms of Oncogenesis research program.
Daniel Stribling was the recipient of an Oberndorf Clinical Artificial Intelligence Scholars Award. These projects aim to revolutionize patient care and diagnostics. Stribling is a cancer research trainee who participated in the UF Health Cancer Center’s Team-based Interdisciplinary Cancer Research Training (TICaRT) Program. The goal of his project is to develop a prototype model for the personalized prediction of pro-oncogenic microRNA targeting and subsequent potential gene regulatory network dysregulation for specific patients’ tumors.
