UBC Dentistry Alumnus Receives Prestigious National Cancer Institute Award

Dr, Jordan Cheng

 

UBC Dentistry Alumnus Jordan Cheng (DMD 2017), and current trainee in the Oral Biology PhD program at UCLA, was recently awarded the National Cancer Institute’s prestigious F99/K00Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Award. This award aims to support and retain outstanding graduate students who are pursuing careers as independent cancer researchers. The award will facilitate the transition of trainee from their graduate training to a postdoctoral appointment at a high-impact cancer lab.

Jordan was selected as one of only 24 awardees from institutes in the United States.

Jordan is currently completing the final two years of his graduate level training in the laboratory of another UBC alumnus, David Wong (DMD 1981). Jordan’s current research project at UCLA is to characterize a novel population of ultrashort cell-free DNA in biofluids such as plasma and saliva. This population will enhance the performance of cancer diagnostics platforms in liquid biopsy. For his postdoctoral training he hopes to further augment his skills in molecular biology and bioinformatics in order develop expertise in in cancer diagnostics.