National Cancer Institute Awarded Jordan Cheng, DMD, the prestigious F99/K00 Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Award

Jordan Cheng, DMD, a graduate trainee in the Oral Biology Ph.D. program at the UCLA School of Dentistry, was recently awarded the National Cancer Institute’s Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Award (F99/K00). The F99/K00 award is to support and retain outstanding graduate students recognized by their institutions for their high potential and strong interest in pursuing careers as independent cancer researchers. The award will facilitate the transition of trainees from their graduate training to postdoctoral appointments at high-impact cancer labs.

Jordan was selected as the UCLA nominee to apply for the NCI F99/K00 Fellowship. After the study section review, he was selected as one of the 24 awardees amongst various applicants from institutes around the country.

Jordan’s proposed career development path is to complete the final two years of his graduate level training in the laboratory of Dr. David Wong (F99) at UCLA followed by a four-year appointment in any cancer-related laboratory for his postdoctoral training (K00). Jordan’s 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 molecular biology and bioinformatics in order develop expertise in in cancer diagnostics.

Congratulations to Dr. Cheng for this outstanding achievement, poising him towards a career in cancer research.