Outreach Core The Stanford CCSB Outreach Core will disseminate to the cancer research and broader communities our center scientific and methodological advances in applying the principles of cancer systems biology toward the study of tumor-immune interactions. We will work to promote cancer systems biology by researchers at all career stages. We will also develop and implement an evaluation process to assess the effectiveness of our proposed outreach activities. Toward these aims, our CCSB Outreach Core will organize and oversee activities including an annual symposia, monthly seminar series, a broadly disseminated quarterly newsletter, and a website which will highlight our publications and research. Our website will also include a dedicated section that will make our Center's computational models and tools available to the community and provide information on how to access the publicly available data generated by our projects. To foster the growth and advancement of our early stage investigators (graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and research scientists) in the area of cancer systems biology, we will establish an Early Investigators Committee, which will work toward identifying specific needs of these groups. Moreover, we will provide opportunities for our early investigators to interact with thought leaders through monthly seminars and feature an early investigator in our quarterly newsletter. We will encourage participation in a competitive poster session at our annual symposium, and application for cross-training funds at other participating NIH CSBC Research Centers. Stanford also offers the first training program in cancer systems biology, the NCI-funded Cancer Systems Biology Scholars (CSBS) program, which is led by our PI. Through this program, we have already established a new course in cancer systems biology, a Stanford roadmap for scholars to become knowledgeable in the cross-disciplinary areas related to cancer systems biology, a monthly journal club discussing cancer systems biology research, and a training session on writing grants in the field of cancer systems biology that includes a mock grant review. All of our CCSB early investigators will have full access to these programs. Finally, we will develop and implement an annual, online evaluation strategy that will enable us to assess and continually improve our outreach activities by soliciting feedback from our participating faculty, early stage investigators, partnering research centers in the NIH CSBC and the broader community attending our events. All of the evaluation results will be made accessible for review by our Internal Advisory Board, External Advisory Board and the NIH to ensure that our outreach goals are being met.
