By bringing together teams of trainees across disciplines, the Team-based Interdisciplinary Cancer Research Training (TICaRT) Program is accelerating discovery, from a new method to detect pancreatic cancer early to improved methods to assess lung cancer risk.
Four teams of UF pre- and postdoctoral fellows have been selected to participate in the third two-year cohort of TICaRT, the only National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded T32 training program of its kind in the country. Trainees, who were selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants, come from four UF colleges.
The premise of TICaRT is that the next generation of cancer researchers will require expertise in interdisciplinary approaches in a team-based setting to address the increasing complexities of cancer and become successful independent investigators. The approach mirrors the UF Health Cancer Center’s strategy for addressing the problem of cancer: The center now draws members from 14 of the 16 UF colleges, from nursing to education.
“The teams couldn’t do what they do in their team project without working with someone else; for example, we have an anatomy and cell biology researcher working with a researcher in chemistry on new drug development,” said Dietmar Siemann, Ph.D., principal investigator of the T32 training grant and associate director for education and training at the Cancer Center. “In order to tackle certain questions, you need to pull in people from other arenas who have different expertise.”
New projects address challenging cancers
The 2025-27 cohort, which was introduced during the TICaRT Research Symposium on July 25, will use innovative approaches to study some of the most challenging cancers. In one, researchers from pharmacy and cancer biology will study a strategy to target treatment-resistant lung cancers by using RNA delivery and transcriptional inhibition.
In another, a researcher at The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology will work with a biochemistry trainee to develop novel small-molecule drugs targeting a transcription factor in the most common type of lung cancer.
Another project teams up engineering and neuroscience trainees to use bioprinting to understand immune cell interactions, with the goal of advancing T cell therapy for glioblastoma, the deadliest brain cancer.
And trainees from veterinary medicine and molecular biology will use advanced spatial transcriptomics techniques to study the role of gangliosides in mice receiving a lipid nanoparticle immunotherapy treatment for glioblastoma.
A model for discovery
The first TICaRT cohort began in 2021 when Siemann received the T32 training grant from the NCI. A second cohort started in 2023. Over 30 basic science and clinical faculty from nine colleges are participating, representing 22 departments and 11 Ph.D. programs.
Graduates have had numerous accomplishments, including individual and team presentations at three annual UF Health Cancer Center outreach events. The first cohort has had 17 publications and the second has already had 10 publications.
Trainees have learned how to lead and facilitate collaborations, and they have gained valuable scientific communication skills. “When you’re a chemist and the other person is a biologist, you don’t speak the same language,” Siemann said.
Trainees also learn a foundational principle for research: trust.
“Trust becomes really essential because you’re accepting what someone else is doing that you really don’t know,” Siemann said. “You have to trust your partner. As faculty, our effective collaborations are with people that we trust. Our trainees learn this early on.”
Siemann and the TICaRT team recently published a peer-reviewed journal article describing the program’s success. The program is driving cancer discoveries and new treatment approaches, while fostering a supportive and productive learning environment, according to the article published in the International Journal of Radiation Biology.
It’s also driving collaborations that have continued outside the training period. This expanded network has led to a multi-investigator grant proposal involving researchers in both trainees’ labs.
The annual research symposium provided an opportunity for trainees from the 2023-25 cohort to share their research success and get feedback on future directions.
One project has harnessed the strengths of epidemiology and medicinal chemistry to improve early detection of lung cancer through risk assessments. Other researchers have made strides in tumor virology, advancing small-molecule drugs called PROTACs to target latent viruses.
A third project has advanced a promising platform for early detection of pancreatic cancer, which is typically not found until it has reached an advanced stage. Nathan Hart, a predoctoral fellow in chemistry, developed a microrobotic platform based on microRNA biomarkers identified by his teammate Jordan McKean, M.D., a surgery resident. The team has seen early success with a small number of clinical samples.
Another project paired Jeremy Ducharme, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in the UF Department of Physical Therapy, with Maddy Carelock, a predoctoral fellow in the Cancer Biology Concentration in the UF Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences.
Together, they studied how identifying and eliminating senescent cells with a PROTAC could reverse cancer cachexia, a devastating metabolic condition with no approved therapeutic interventions.
“My background is in exercise physiology and Maddy has given me an appreciation for the tumor microenvironment,” Ducharme said. “This work would not have been possible if either of us was doing it alone.”
Photos: 2025 TICaRT Research Symposium
