Graduate, Post-Doctoral, & Medical Student Training & Education Opportunities


CRTEC supports the training and education of graduate, post-doctoral, and medical students by:

  1. Assisting with and creating cancer-relevant training programs.
  2. Organizing and facilitating the Cancer Symposium Seminars and Colloquiums
  3. Disseminating relevant grant and training opportunities.
  4. Providing supplemental funding opportunities for training courses and innovation awards.

Each year new graduate program students embark on a journey to earn a PhD, MD-PhD, or post-doctoral degree through the Graduate Program in Cancer Biology. This interdepartmental program includes training in basic biomedical sciences with opportunities to apply clinical and translational research to studies on human cancer.

Research Programs

Basic research scientists at the CU Cancer Center strive to understand better the fundamental biological activity that leads to cancer. They work closely with clinical researchers to translate laboratory findings into drugs, therapies and techniques that can be applied to patients. Clinical researchers then enroll patients in one of the more than 250 available clinical trials to test these new treatments in cancer research studies. The results of this collaboration are promising new techniques to diagnose, treat and prevent cancer.

Investigators at the CU Cancer Center focus on interdisciplinary research conducted in four main programs: 1) Cancer Prevention and Control, 2) Developmental Therapeutics, 3) Molecular and Cellular Oncology, and 4) Tumor Host Interactions.

Some of the education and training programs that are available to graduate and post-doctoral students include the Colorado Academic Instruction & Research Nexus (CAIRN) Program, the Oncology Summer Internship (OSI), the Lung Head & Neck T32, and the Training in Cancer Biology T32.

OSI: Oncology Summer Internship

The CU-Cancer Center OSI is an ASCO-OSI pilot program that provides a paid clinical experience in oncology for rising second-year medical students attending the CU School of Medicine who are from populations that are under-represented in medicine.

Students in this program spend the summer between their first and second year of medical school attending lectures on oncology topics, shadowing oncology professionals, and interacting with patients in clinic and hospital settings.

Faculty Sponsors: Tejas Patil, MD, Wells Messersmith, MD, and John Tentler, PhD

Contact John Tentler, PhD, for more information.