Abstract
Undergraduate students harbor a number of misconceptions about the complexity of cancer. Though educational interventions have been shown to promote student learning of various aspects of this ubiquitous disease, to date no studies have evaluated undergraduate student understanding of the Hallmarks of Cancer, a set of core properties that have emerged as the defining characteristics that drive cancer development and progression. This study documents poor baseline knowledge of many fundamental aspects of cancer biology and genetics by 2nd- and 3rd-year undergraduate students, and it evaluates the efficacy of a student-centered project as a pedagogical strategy for improving student understanding of both the hallmarks of cancer and the genetic influences that drive their acquisition by cancer cells. Using genomic and transcriptomic datasets from The Cancer Genome Atlas, students investigated the most common genetic aberrations associated with specific cancer types of interest and then researched the functions of these altered genes in order to link their aberrations with specific hallmark properties of cancer. A pre-/post-project assessment of student understanding of topics related to the hallmarks of cancer demonstrated the efficacy of this approach as a means of educating undergraduate students about core cancer concepts.
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Data Availability
Primary data from individual responses to the assessment instrument described herein will be made available upon request. Individual respondents will remain anonymous. All other data and materials from this study are included in this report.
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Acknowledgments
Clinical data utilized in this project was generated and made publicly available by the TCGA Research Network: https://www.cancer.gov/tcga. The author also wishes to thank the undergraduate students who participated in this study.
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KMH was solely responsible for the design, implementation, and reporting of data from this study.
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This study was approved by the Hampden-Sydney College Human Subjects Research Review Committee.
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Informed consent to participate in this study was obtained from all undergraduate students involved in this assessment.
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Informed consent for the reporting of assessment data was obtained from all undergraduate students participating in this study.
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Supplementary Information
Online Resource 1
Detailed project description, including step-by-step instructions for use of the cBioPortal for Cancer Genomics and GEPIA web tools (DOCX 1500 kb)
Online Resource 2
Sample student project submission (DOCX 20 kb)
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Hargadon, K.M. Using The Cancer Genome Atlas as a Tool to Improve Undergraduate Student Understanding of Cancer Genetics and the Hallmarks of Cancer Progression. J Canc Educ 37, 1357–1363 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-021-01962-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-021-01962-y