In the face of the unknown, two cancer center leaders discuss planning for the future, recovering from their losses, and holding on to what they still have.
Right now, there are more questions than answers.
“It's hard to plan, and try to make sure that what we're doing in the cancer research space is going to be funded,” said Ben Ho Park, director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. “What programs, some of which have already been pulled, will not be pulled? Or even if they're cut back, what is that cut back going to look like?”
Park, who is also the Benjamin F. Byrd, Jr. Chair in Oncology and professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology-Oncology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center appeared on The Cancer Letter Podcast with Suresh S. Ramalingam, director of Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University and professor in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine.
Ramalingam, who is also the Roberto C. Goizueta Distinguished Chair for Cancer Research at the Emory University School of Medicine, and editor-in-chief of Cancer, said bringing in new investigators and researchers is paramount, but he worries if funding uncertainties will turn away early career faculty members.
“We're providing some supportive grants, pilot funds to pivot them to some new priority areas. And hopefully those efforts will bear fruit. But definitely, this has left a lot of people scrambling,” Ramalingam said. “Even if their grants have not been cut, they're worried about whether they will be able to renew it and continue their programs. Will they be able to keep the staff in their labs employed so they can continue their research work? Have they all been topics of day-to-day conversations within the cancer center?”
Park shares Ramalingam’s concerns, not only for existing and future investigators, but also for trainees.
“The trainees, they're not blinded to this at all,” Park said. “They're seeing it and they're thinking, ‘Wow, what kind of future do we have as a cancer researcher going forward?’ So, I think that there's many downstream and domino type effects that will be felt for years to come. And we've seen some of it. I've seen attrition in some of our senior trainees who just decided this isn't the right career path for them because it's just too stressful.”
Park’s refrain during this time is something his father used to say: “Tough times don't last. Tough people do.”
Park and Ramalingam, along with discussant Beverly Ginsburg Cooper, managing director for research at Huron Consulting Group, appeared together on The Directors, a monthly series which focuses on the problems that keep directors of cancer centers up at night.
The American Society of Clinical Oncology sponsored this episode. ASCO plays no part in the editorial direction of this podcast.
A transcript of this episode is available: https://cancerletter.com/podcastc/20250912_1/