Education

This fellowship which commenced in 2001 with the endowment established by Dr. Sheng-Pu Lee, offers hands-on research training for undergraduate, Master, and medical students. The program which is aimed at supporting and inspiring the interest of these students in research on the center’s theme, has trained 129 student fellows to date. Accepted fellows work full-time for 8 weeks during the summer on projects related to the Center theme in the Center member’s laboratories. The fellowship committee (Drs. Said, Stiles, and Machida) reviews applications and select the fellows based on: 1) the student eligibility and potential; 2) clarity and feasibility of the research summary; and 3) the mentor’s enthusiasm in their LOS. Since 2018, 46 Fellows have completed the program including 2 high school senior, 18 undergraduate, 9 Master’s and PhD, 13 medical/pharmacy students plus 4 pre-med research interns. The Fellows presented their research progress following brief mentor’s introduction at the Progress Report meeting held on the second Friday of August and receive a certificate and an $1000 award.

Graduate and Post-Graduate Educational Program

A two-unit graduate course INTD570 entitled “Current Topics in Cellular Homeostasis” offered in the Spring semester at USC, is supported by the Administrative Core and coordinated by the Course Directors, Drs. Machida, Stiles, and Tsukamoto. The principle of the course is to offer graduate and post-graduate students opportunities to directly learn from and interact with leading-edge scientists in diverse fields of cellular homeostasis. The topics may not directly cover ALPD but reflect current mainstream research interests in cell and molecular biology relevant to the pathogenesis of ALPD. We believe that learning most advanced basic science in cellular homeostasis is essential for promoting the depth and sophistication of our scientific endeavors toward the understanding of the diseases of our interest. Except for 2020 when the course was cancelled due to the COVID-19 lockdown, we had 69 Master’s and Ph.D. students registered for the course in the past 7 years. The course continues to be one of the most popular inter-departmental graduate seminar courses recommended by the Systems Biology and Disease and Experimental and Molecular Pathology graduate programs since 2008. In addition, Dr. Tsukamoto teaches two 2-hour lectures on the pathogenesis of alcohol-associated liver disease and cirrhosis in the USC General Pathology (INTD550) and Advanced Pathology (INTD551) courses. In the same INTD551 course, Dr. Pandol and Dr. Said teach each one 2-hour lecture on alcoholic pancreatitis and alcohol effects on vitamin and amino acid transport, respectively.

Postdoctoral Training

The center makes major efforts to support and monitor predoc and postdoctoral training within our program. In addition to the seminar course described above, the center organizes mini-workshops, progress report meetings, annual symposia to showcase postdocs and their research, provide them with opportunities to learn from other postdocs and senior scientists, and to promote collaboration among other center laboratories. To recognize and honor the excellence of pre and postdoctoral research within the center community, we have established the Samuel W. French Junior Scientist Award in honor of the late member Professor Sam French. The center members nominate pre and postdocs who submit their research project abstracts and biosketches to the Award Committee. The committee evaluate and score submitted abstracts for selection of 3-4 junior and 3-4 senior trainees who will present their research at the center annual symposium. The External Scientific Advisory Board members who attend the symposium, evaluate their research and presentations based on the quality of science and presentation, the ability to articulate answers to questions, and the trainee’s potential. The board members meet in a closed session to review and discuss the scores assigned for final selection for the award to be given for both junior and senior trainee categories. The inaugural awardees in 2023 were Lien Reolizo from Cedars, Noemi Cabre from UCSD, and Swati Chandla from Cedars. We will continue to recognize and revere the center trainees’ contributions to the center research via this award.

Of 152 postdocs trained in our center members’ laboratories since 2018, 34 fellows have subsequently obtained faculty positions with 14 fellows at US universities. Of these, K08 awards were obtained by Drs. Dara, Lai, and Zarrinpar; K23 by Dr. Lee; VA Career Development awards by Drs. Benhammou, Jacob, Jacobs; AASLD Pinnacle, Emerging Scholar, Early Career Investigator awards by Drs. Llorente, Hartmann, Chu, Lang. These transitions of postdocs to the pathway to independence are the testament to the effective mentorship collectively rendered by senior center investigators, the center’s Cores and Pilot Project Program, contributing to the center’s continued growth.

The Lee Summer Student Fellowship program which commenced in 2001 with the endowment established by Dr. Sheng-Pu Lee, offers hands-on research training for undergraduate, Master, and medical students. The program which is aimed at supporting and inspiring the interest of these students in research on the center’s theme, has trained 137 student fellows to date. Accepted fellows work full-time for 8 weeks during the summer on projects related to the Center theme in the Center member’s laboratories. The Fellowship Committee reviews applications and select the fellows based on:

1. The student eligibility and potential
2. Clarity and feasibility of the research summary
3. The mentor’s enthusiasm in their LOS.

After the completion of the fellowship, each accepted Fellow presents her/his research progress following a brief mentor’s introduction at the Progress Report meeting held on the second Friday of August and receive a certificate and an award ($1,000-1,500). Additionally, the Outstanding Performance Award ($500) is offered to 1-2 Lee Fellows based on the evaluation of the presentations by the Fellowship Committee.

2024 Summer Application Deadline: June 3, 2024 (Decision notified by June 7th)

**Apply early as funds are limited**

Please click here to download the 2024 Lee Summer Fellowship Details.

International Symposium: The Administrative Core supports the international ALPD symposium which commenced in May 2006. With the NIAAA’s R13 grant, the center has taken this initiative to appeal to the global scientific community that ALPD are growing international problems that need to be addressed via active scientific exchange.

Community Seminar: The Administrative Core also supports the Outreach Committee in planning and implementing the center’s outreach program that disseminates new research findings on ALPD to our community where high prevalence of the diseases is documented. Lourdes Baezconde-Garbanati, the Outreach Committee Chair is internationally known for her expertise in the areas of culture and community healthy with an emphasis on health disparity in Hispanic/Latino communities. Thus, she is an ideal leader for our community outreach on ALPD with a highest incidence in Hispanics. In May 2019, the Center collaborated with the LA County’s Alcohol and Drug Administration Program to organize a seminar, “Dangerous Health Effects of Alcohol: What Your Patients and Clients Need to Know”. Sixty-five interdisciplinary professionals from the community attended the seminar. The benefit outcome of the seminar was evaluated by Yaneth Rodriguez, MPH under the supervision of Dr. Thomas Valente, an expert in evaluation of health promotion by designing and implementing pre- and post-tests to assess knowledge improvement. The average percentage of correct answers significantly improved by 19% to 68% at post-testing, supporting the value of the seminar. Financially supported by the Center’s endowment and gift accounts and administratively supported by the Administrative Core, we plan to offer one or two seminars in each cycle of the P50 program.

Outreach Committee Members:

• Baezconde-Garbanti, Lourdes
• Lu, Shelly C.
• Saab, Sammy
• Pandol, Stephen J.

The Interdepartmental (INTD) 570 (formerly Pathology 575): Frontiers in Pathology – Cellular Homeostasis Lecture Series is a 2-unit graduate course offered at the Keck School of Medicine of USC every spring semester. The course is coordinated by Drs. Hidekazu Tsukamoto, Keigo Machida, and Bangyan Stiles. The fundamental principle of the course is to offer graduate and post-graduate students the opportunities to directly learn from and interact with leading and cutting-edge scientists in respective fields relevant to cellular homeostasis. The class is taught by invited speakers and is open to graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty and anyone with an interest in the topic.

Course Description

Weekly research lectures by leading investigators in the field of cellular homeostasis held every Thursday from 12:00 p.m. to 1:45 p.m. at the Health Sciences Campus of USC.

Student Attendance

The student attendance will be recorded for all seminars. The last class will be the first Thursday in May. Students are required to attend a majority of the seminars.

Student Comprehension

The student will be required to understand the hypothesis and results obtained for key publication(s) by a lecturer, which will be available on Blackboard at least one week prior to each lecture. Immediately after each lecture, the students will have a separate Q&A discussion session with the speaker to help promote the understanding of the speaker´s research from both scientific and philosophical viewpoints. Following the lecture series, the student will prepare a 20-min summary presentation on a selected lecture topic. This presentation session will take place in the last 3 classes. Student presentations will be held in MMR 408 (conference room).

Student Evaluation

Each student will be evaluated by:

1. Lecture participation in discussions (15%)
2. Activity in student-lecturer discussion (20%)
3. Leading student-lecturer discussion as a moderator (15%)
4. A 20-min summary presentation on the selected paper (50%)

Student Presentation

Each PowerPoint presentation should be 20 min summarizing:

1. Background
2. A central hypothesis
3. Key findings presented during a lecture
4. Other studies related to the lecture
5. Interpretation and conclusions including your own thoughts and opinions

Each presentation will be followed by a 10 min question/discussion session. Email your PowerPoint presentation to  the Course Directors or bring a CD or USB memory stick to MMR 412 by 11:00 a.m. of assigned Thursday (dates will be assigned later in the course).

Grading

Letter grading (A-C) will be given based on the above criteria.