Temple and Fox Chase partner on research and education

“We are excited to take another significant step in our developing relationship with Temple,” said J. Robert Beck, M.D., senior vice president and chief academic officer at Fox Chase Cancer Center.

“Temple University, through its Fels Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Biology, has a distinguished history in basic investigation related to cancer. Fox Chase has a substantial research portfolio as well, and recently we were identified by The Scientist as one of the 10 best places in America for postdoctoral fellows to train. This partnership also will allow our faculty to benefit through training predoctoral students, with increased opportunities for collaborative research,” Beck said.

Interested Fox Chase Cancer Center physicians and scientists can apply for faculty appointments in one of eight basic science departments at Temple’s School of Medicine. Once they become faculty members, they can select and train School of Medicine graduate (Ph.D.) students who will work in their research labs. Initially, there will be three students training at Fox Chase, and the plan is to build gradually from there. Currently, there are 125 graduate students at Temple’s School of Medicine. There will be no cap on the number of Fox Chase faculty appointments.

Members of Fox Chase will also be involved in the didactic component of Temple’s graduate programs. Their teaching activities will not only broaden the intellectual horsepower of the graduate faculty, but also will give students a chance to meet Fox Chase members who are interested in mentoring Temple graduate students during the research phase of their training.

“If you were to survey scientists on the most important members of their lab, most would enthusiastically reply, ‘graduate students,’” Coico said. “Incredibly motivated, graduate students have a fire in the belly and work very hard. And scientists love to work with the students. The payback from mentoring is immeasurable.”

Temple graduate students will now have a wider range of training opportunities from which to choose, including a new joint program in bioinformatics that would be housed at Fox Chase and offered through Temple.

Fox Chase already runs a robust bioinformatics facility, a core resource that Temple scientists can now utilize. At the same time, Fox Chase scientists can tap into Temple core research facilities including biostatistics, flow cytometry, proteomics, histology, biomedical physics, pharmacokinetics and pharmacogenomics.