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Purpose

The Translational Research Interest Group (TRIG), serving the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, was founded in Fall of 2010 by Dr. Irene La-Beck. TRIG’s purpose is to fostering the involvement of students in scholarly endeavors, to help students identify their research interests early on, and to promote interactions between students and faculty/clinicians that will enhance the professional growth of the students involved.

Members

TRIG will apply for official recognition as a student organization in Fall of 2013, with approximately 20 founding students members and officers in all four Ìð¹ÏÊÓƵ campuses: Amarillo, Abilene, Dallas, and Lubbock.  Dr. La-Beck is the faculty advisor for the organization and there are faculty liaisons on three of the four campuses: Dr. Wood in Abilene, Dr. Trippier in Amarillo, and Dr. Alvarez in Dallas.  We aim to identify a faculty liaison for Lubbock be the end of Fall 2013.

Accomplishments

TRIG organizes a Translational Research Seminar Series approximately once a semester with internal and external guest speakers.  Our past speakers included Dr. Yvonne Paterson from the University of Pennsylvania who pioneered the development of listeria based anticancer immunotherapeutics.  Our seminar series are attended by Ìð¹ÏÊÓƵ-SOP students, faculty, residents, our colleagues from the School of Medicine, and students and faculty from local baccalaureate institutions.

Students who are involved in TRIG have been able to successfully compete for research internships and employment positions.  Additionally, they contribute significantly to research projects and are co-authors on poster presentations and manuscripts.  Examples include:

• three students who coauthored a manuscript published in The Oncologist
• poster presentations at the Cancer Nanotechnology Gordon Research Conference, the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual conference, and the American Association for Cancer Research annual conference.