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Postdoctoral Training

Training

My Fox Chase Experience
Best Place to Work
No longer a secret, Fox Chase is recognized as one of the best places to work in the U.S. for postdocs.

In addition to numerous journal clubs, training seminars in safety, animal use, and radioisotope handling, joint laboratory meetings, and intramural and extramural seminar series, Fox Chase Cancer Center provides a concerted training program specifically designed to maximize productivity and equip postdocs to make informed career choices upon completing their postdoctoral experience at Fox Chase.

Bioinformatics

Fox Chase provides our trainees with updated instruction in bioinformatics, including instruction in the latest in data analysis algorithms. In addition, the Information Science and Technology Facilities provide custom solutions for any data analysis problem that may arise.

Help is available in the following areas:

Web fundamentals
Bioinformatic tools to keep up with scientific literature
Effective management and use of citation databases
Use of MS office to compile and present data
Search and alignment algorithms: knowing which one is best for your application
Quantifying alignments with the scoring matrix that's best for your application
Databases: finding out what they contain and how to access this information

Teaching

Fox Chase has relationships with local academic institutions, which allow postdoctoral trainees the opportunity to teach at the undergraduate or graduate levels.

Educational Seminars and Conferences

Annual Postdoc and Graduate Student Research Conference
The Annual Postdoc and Graduate Student Research Conference was started at Fox Chase in 1995 and continues to be an annual event providing the postdoctoral community an opportunity to present their work both as oral and poster presentations. Keynote speakers and Panel Discussions on Alternate Careers in Science have provided stimulating programs. The event includes a barbecue lunch served under the tents in the Center's gardens, vendor exhibits, and a wine and cheese award reception following the poster sessions. In recent years, this event has been open to postdocs and graduate students in the greater Philadelphia area.
Postdoctoral Research in Progress series
The ability to construct and deliver a compelling oral presentation is vital to success in most areas of scientific employment. Consequently, Fox Chase provides a mentored seminar series in which postdocs present a formal seminar and then receive evaluation intended to improve their public speaking ability.
Invited speakers
This program, initiated in 1999, enables postdoctoral fellows to invite one scientist in the Fox Chase Distinguished Lecturer Series Fall and Spring. The postdoctoral community suggests speakers, and a committee organizes the visit. These visits maximize the interactions of postdocs with the visiting lecturer, providing opportunities to discuss scientific and career issues at lunch, dinner, and informal sessions throughout the speaker's visit to Fox Chase.
- o 2004 - Scott Lowe
- 2003 - Elaine Fuchs
- 2002 - Mary Estes
- 2001 - Wafik El-Diery
- 2000 - Shirley Tilghman
Career seminars
Fox Chase routinely sponsors seminars for our postdoctoral trainees that are designed to expose them to career paths other than that of an academic research laboratory.

Examples of recent Speakers:
- Head of business development at a large pharmaceutical company
- Investment analyst for the biotech sector
- Researcher at a large pharmaceutical company
- Bioinformatician
Our goal is to expose trainees to diverse types of employment sufficiently early in their training so that they have time to acquire the skills necessary to make themselves attractive to prospective employers.

Graduate Education

Graduate students at the Center carry out thesis research under the supervision of staff members who hold adjunct faculty appointments at Thomas Jefferson University, Lehigh University, University of Pennsylvania, and Temple University, and members who participate in the Fox Chase-Russian State Medical University Sister Institute Program. Generally, these students have completed the major course work requirements for the doctoral degree and are engaged in full-time research. In 2003, Fox Chase Cancer Center initiated a graduate school alliance with Drexel University College of Medicine, and in 2004 the first graduate students from the Department of Biochemistry, and in the Program in Molecular and Cellular Biology, performed laboratory rotations with members of our faculty that hold joint appointments in the Department of Biochemistry at Drexel University College of Medicine . At any one time, there are between 20 and 30 graduate students performing thesis research at Fox Chase.

Grants Writing Course

A Workshop in Grants Writing is organized and run by Dr. Erica Golemis. In this 6-week intensive workshop, fellows write portions of grants and scientific manuscripts, and these efforts are discussed and critiqued by their colleagues in a roundtable discussion format. This course is currently offered every Spring.