# Cancer Research Education, Advancement, Training and Empowerment (CREATE) in the Pacific

> **NIH NIH R25** · UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA · 2024 · $271,259

## Abstract

This proposal will establish a training program called “Cancer Research Education, Advancement, Training
and Empowerment” (CREATE) at the University of Hawai`i Cancer Center (UHCC). The program addresses
the over-arching goal to enhance the training of a workforce to meet biomedical, behavioral, and clinical
research needs to lower cancer incidence and mortality in the Pacific. CREATE takes advantage of the
excellent research opportunities arising from the distinctive population and environment in Hawai`i and the
Pacific with strong multi-disciplinary collaborations at the University of Hawai`i and its collaborations with the
University of Guam. Research training in our multiethnic population with persons of Native Hawaiian, Pacific
Islander, Japanese, Filipino, Chinese, Korean, and European ancestry is important to address cancer health
disparities due to ethnicity and low socio-economic status while the unique biologic resources and natural
compounds found nowhere else in the world will prepare the next generation of researchers for drug
discovery and mechanistic cancer research to create new cancer treatments. Besides the 10-week hands-on
experience at UHCC, CREATE will include a curriculum of multi-disciplinary seminars, workshops, and career
development sessions. Success of the program will be evaluated through several indicators, e.g., proportion
of participants in biomedical graduate programs and research careers, based on long-term tracking by
surveys, email, social media, and personal contacts. The goal of CREATE to offer distinctive training
experiences in cancer biology and in population sciences will be achieved through the implementation of the
following aims:
 1. Provide hands-on summer research experiences and a multi-disciplinary curriculum to
 undergraduate students residing in the Islands of Hawai`i and the Pacific to reinforce their intent to
 graduate with a science degree and to consider a career to address health disparities and
 contribute to drug discovery.
 2. Offer first-year graduate students living in Hawai`i and the Pacific in cancer-related fields of study
 the opportunity to gain a 1-semester research experience in a multiethnic environment or unique
 cancer biology labs with the goal to enhance their skills to address causes, diagnosis,
 prevention, and treatment of cancer and to improve competitiveness in their future careers in
 cancer-related research.
The program builds upon the many years of success of UHCC's Summer Internship Program that has
provided research experiences to more than 220 students over the last 10 years and was previously funded
by a CURE supplement to the P30 Cancer Center Support Grant and by philanthropic funds. The large pool
of potential participants will represent the distinct ethnic composition of students from Hawai`i and Guam. In
summary, CREATE will offer students in Hawai`i and the Pacific a unique research experience in population
sciences or cancer biology that will enable them t...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10902001
- **Project number:** 5R25CA244073-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA
- **Principal Investigator:** Joseph Keawe'aimoku Kaholokula
- **Activity code:** R25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $271,259
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-08-01 → 2025-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10902001

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10902001, Cancer Research Education, Advancement, Training and Empowerment (CREATE) in the Pacific (5R25CA244073-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10902001. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*