Since the program began in 2010, it has awarded 567 fellowships for projects undertaken by 262 undergraduates, 168 graduates, 131 postdoctoral fellows and six medical students. It also has provided Ohio State undergrads with international research experiences in India and Brazil and has enabled students from those nations to help with cancer research at Ohio State.
Students apply competitively for the fellowships, which are peer-reviewed and issued by a committee of faculty cancer researchers chaired by Pelotonia Fellowship Program director Rosa Lapalombella, PhD, an associate professor in the Division of Hematology at Ohio State and a member of the Leukemia Research Program at the OSUCCC – James.
Below are profiles of three Pelotonia fellowship recipients, including an undergraduate, a graduate and a postdoctoral fellow. Although there was no mass cycling event in Pelotonia 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all three of these fellows participated and raised funds with My Pelotonia experiences of their own invention.
Max Wilberding, a senior majoring in biomedical sciences with a minor in creative writing, had no idea his work as a Pelotonia Fellowship recipient would make an immediate impact.
An undergraduate researcher in the Precision Cancer Medicine laboratory of Sameek Roychowdhury, MD, PhD, Wilberding is studying the role of the olfactomedin-4 (OLFM4) gene in cholangiocarcinoma, a widely inoperable and deadly cancer of the bile ducts. Most patient with this disease are diagnosed in later stages when surgery is not an option and there are few viable chemotherapies.
“Given the rapid progression of the disease and the limited options for treatment, five-year survival rates for patients with cholangiocarcinoma are below 2%,” says Wilberding, who was born and raised near West Chester, Ohio.
He notes that Roychowdhury, a member of the Translational Therapeutics Program at the OSUCCC – James, and his lab team have found OLFM4 to be dysfunctional in advanced cholangiocarcinoma. Wilberding is studying this dysfunction in different cells that he grows in the lab “to learn why OLFM4 causes tumor formation and disease progression.”
“This study shows promise for future impact, as pinning OLFM4 as a driver for cancers will allow us to work with pharmaceutical companies to create therapies that target this gene and prevent the cancer from growing,” he says, adding that, although such therapies are “still a long way off, I have hope that my research will one day provide hope to patients diagnosed with one of the worst cancers.”
He also has been inspired by meeting patients with cholangiocarcinoma who have benefited from research conducted in the Roychowdhury lab, including a woman in her 50s whom Roychowdhury, through a specialized genomic test, matched with a drug therapy that targets specific cancer-causing mutations. Wilberding says meeting patients on these clinical trials makes the research seem all the more important and impactful.
Another motivating factor is the realization that his research could help preserve family ties among generations. Before Wilberding was born he lost a grandparent to cancer, and his father spent most of his childhood without a mother. On a happier note, one of Wilberding’s grandmothers has twice beaten cancer.
“I’m so proud of her resilience and thankful for her presence in my life,” he says. “I emphasize the importance of that intergenerational experience of love that many families miss out on because of cancer. I continue to spend my time as a student — and hope to spend my career — working to give families that connection.”
Speaking of career, he has applied to medical school at Ohio State and hopes to interview later this year so he can enroll in the fall of 2021. He plans to pursue an MD and would like to become a cancer researcher.
Melanie Krook, PhD, also a Pelotonia rider, is a senior postdoctoral fellow who supervises Wilberding. Together they have written a blog about his research experiences. In Pelotonia 2019, his first year of participation, Wilberding rode 45 miles as a member of Team Buckeye – Sameek’s Geeks, which consists of nearly every member of the Roychowdhury lab. His My Pelotonia experience for 2020 was continuing to train (via cycling) and to raise funds with his fellow teammates as if there were going to be a mass ride this year.
Wilberding enjoys working in the Roychowdhury lab and contributing to the OSUCCC – James vision to create a cancer-free world. “We have one of the best cancer teams in the world at Ohio State,” he says, “and I’d consider myself lucky to spend my life working here in Columbus to help this community that has embraced me as one of its own.”
After riding 45 miles in each of the past five Pelotonias, Ansel Nalin, a student in the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) at Ohio State — where he is working toward an MD/PhD — was looking forward to cycling 100 miles in Pelotonia 2020.
But when the COVID-19 pandemic prompted Pelotonia officials to cancel this year’s mass cycling event, Nalin, like thousands of other Pelotonia participants, created an individual My Pelotonia experience to serve his fundraising efforts for 2020.
“I’ve been a competitive distance runner for many more years than I’ve been a cyclist or triathlete, so most of my athletic goals are related to running,” Nalin says. “When thinking of goals that would push me to excel, one I came up with was to run 2,020 miles, in honor of the year, retroactively from January 1 to August 8, which would’ve been the day of the ride.”
That ambitious goal would involve running an average of 65 miles per week, but he was confident he could do it because, when he set the goal, he hadn’t missed a day of running in 2020. He also anticipated riding his bike a lot this summer, so his My Pelotonia experience would include “putting on my jersey, getting on the bike, and spreading awareness and camaraderie for this great cause.”
Nalin is in the Buckeye Student Riders (BSR) – Spin Doctors peloton, which is part of the Team Buckeye superpeloton.
“The Spin Doctors is a group of medical students who ride in Pelotonia,” he says, adding that he is in his seventh year of the MSTP program, having completed two years of medical school and four years of PhD research. After his current and final academic year devoted to research, Nalin, who hails from Carmel, Indiana, will return to medical school for two years and earn his MD/PhD in May 2023.
His research mentor is Aharon Freud, MD, PhD, a member of the Leukemia Research Program at the OSUCCC – James, whose lab team seeks to understand how natural killer (NK) cells of the human immune system develop in healthy and diseased settings so that processes can be modulated to promote effective NK cell anticancer functions.
Nalin says his Pelotonia Graduate Fellowship has enabled him to pursue his studies in human innate immune cell development in the Freud lab.
“NK cells have an important role in targeting and eliminating cancer cells,” he says, explaining that his project has identified how a signaling pathway called Notch regulates NK cell development. “In particular, Notch is involved in promoting a specific step during development when NK cells become functionally mature. We have also identified the Notch receptors involved in this process.”
In 2018 Nalin received an F30 predoctoral fellowship from the National Cancer Institute to support his final two years of graduate school. “In addition to supporting my ongoing work, this award has allowed me to pursue further studies of NK cell biology in the setting of cancer,” he says. “The translational studies in our group focus on how NK cell development and function are dysregulated in cancers such as acute myeloid leukemia.”
Nalin is interested in radiation oncology as a medical specialty. “After graduating from the MD/PhD program, I plan to enter residency to continue my clinical training, and also to maintain research efforts in cancer immunology,” he says. “I’m working toward a career as a physician-scientist in hopes of leading translational efforts to discover new therapies for cancer.”
Pelotonia is propelling him onward. “The enthusiasm I see every year at Pelotonia inspires me to continue to work hard toward achieving all of my goals.”
Amina Abdul-Aziz, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in the Experimental Hematology Lab (EHL) at the OSUCCC – James, knows that dollars are the fuel for successful cancer research.
“Every cancer research idea is impactful, and ‘impact’ in academia starts with obtaining prestigious funding,” says Abdul-Aziz, whose research was bolstered by a Pelotonia Fellowship Award in 2019. “Pelotonia funding was incredibly valuable for my early-career development. It has helped me generate highly promising data that convinced the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to award me one of its coveted Early Career K99/R00 grants in January 2020.”
Abdul-Aziz says the NIH grant will support the next five years of her career, enabling her to finish her postdoctoral training in the EHL under the mentorship of John C. Byrd, MD, Distinguished University Professor in the Division of Hematology at Ohio State and co-leader of the Leukemia Research (LR) Program at the OSUCCC – James, and Erin Hertlein, PhD, assistant professor of Hematology and member of the LR Program. The grant also will help Abdul-Aziz apply later for faculty positions at Ohio State and other institutions.
Her Pelotonia-funded research project, which she is continuing with Byrd and Hertlein, seeks to understand the role of senescent (aging) bone marrow cells in the microenvironment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a disease that frequently results in death among older adults.
“This study proposes to investigate drivers of aging and senescence in the microenvironment of AML, with the aim of providing a quantitative measure of senescence in elderly AML patients and identifying therapeutic targets that can positively influence the treatment course of this devastating disease,” Abdul-Aziz says. She explains that the molecular basis for age-related alterations in AML bone marrow cells is poorly described, but if deciphered it could have implications for preventing and treating AML among the elderly.
“Molecular age and immune cell senescence have not been examined in AML patients to predict early morbidity with intensive therapy,” she adds. “If effective in discriminating patients who are more likely to have morbidity, this quantitative tool could be used to determine which patients should be offered intensive chemotherapy versus alternative treatment approaches.”
Abdul-Aziz was born in Vienna, Austria, grew up in Europe and the Middle East, and earned her PhD in biomedical sciences (cancer biology) at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. She joined Byrd’s lab for postdoctoral training in 2017.
In 2019 she participated in her first Pelotonia as a virtual rider in the Team Buckeye – EHL peloton. This year, in the absence of a mass ride and virtual ridership opportunities due to the COVID-19 pandemic, her My Pelotonia experience involved spreading one cancer awareness fact every day via social media, and donating $2 to one Pelotonia profile per day from the date she set her goal until the Oct. 31 fundraising deadline.
“As a scientist, I am passionate about sharing knowledge, and that’s where my first My Pelotonia goal came from,” Abdul-Aziz says. “As for the second goal, I was funded by Pelotonia for six months before I went on an NIH fellowship, so the least I can do for my Pelotonia family is support other fundraising efforts.”
Her long-term goal is to establish her own research group and continue to work toward identifying new therapies for cancer patients. “I want to mentor young scientists, inspire them to do what they love and help them thrive in academic research,” she says.
On a personal level, she says, “Pelotonia is more than research support; it’s a family that believes in me and keeps me motivated and determined to contribute to a bigger effort toward creating a cancer-free world.”