Revolutionary Research Insider | Issue XXI

At the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a commitment to health is embedded in all aspects of campus culture—a promise affirmed by UMass in signing the Okanagan Charter: An International Charter for Health Promoting Universities and Colleges. In this issue of Revolutionary Research Insider, learn how UMass faculty and students across schools and colleges are putting this value into action through research that aims to improve health—for individuals, communities, and the planet—while creating a more just and equitable society.

In 2024, over two million new cases of cancer are expected to be diagnosed and more than 600,000 people are projected to die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. While advances are being made in preventing and treating cancer, this complex disease continues to elude effective treatment in many cases.

Ashish Kulkarni, associate professor in the College of Engineering, UMass Amherst and this month's #SpotlightScholar, believes more personalized approaches to treatment are key to treating cancer.

In his Immunoengineering Research Laboratory, Kulkarni leads a team of researchers working at the intersection of bioengineering, immunology, and cancer studies, targeting aggressive forms of cancer that are often resistant to traditional treatments. His lab's research seeks to make immunotherapy—a unique cancer treatment that harnesses the body’s own immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells—effective for as many cancer patients as possible.

“We know cancer is complex. Individuals’ immune systems also work differently, with some being stronger than others, so personalization is key,” Kulkarni says. “With the therapies we’re developing, we want to boost the immune system to be stronger and remove the ‘cloak’ that cancer cells use to avoid detection. We are also thinking about combination therapies, with multiple drugs that can activate different arms of the immune system to most effectively target the cancer and create long-lasting immune responses.”

Learn more about Kulkarni's research and his ambitious goal to make extremely effective cancer treatments accessible to patients worldwide, such that he can eventually "stop working on cancer because we have cured cancer."

How healthy you are is strongly influenced by social determinants often outside of your own control—factors that include access to high-quality housing, education, safe neighborhoods, health care, and healthy foods and living environments. Meanwhile, troubling disparities in health outcomes persist across social groups.

“Biased public policy that limits access to advantageous social determinants of health have disadvantaged economically and socially marginalized populations for generations, resulting in immense disparities in health and mental health," says Aline Gubrium , professor and program head of community health education in the UMass Amherst School of Public Health & Health Sciences .

Learn about the innovative methods UMass researchers are using to address health disparities, from studying the underlying pathways leading to these disparities to engaging communities to address social determinants of health, and even harnessing the power of the arts.

One last thing: #Didyouknow that since 1964, UMass has maintained a successful scholarly exchange program with research universities in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany? What began as a small study abroad program for students at UMass Amherst and the University of Freiburg has blossomed into a robust educational and research exchange. Today, faculty and students participate from the nine research universities in Baden-Württemberg (Freiburg, Heidelberg, Hohenheim, Karlsruhe [KIT], Konstanz, Mannheim, Stuttgart, Tübingen, and Ulm) and the University of Massachusetts campuses in Amherst, Boston, Lowell, and Dartmouth, as well as UMass Chan Medical School.

“This exchange provides our students with an opportunity to study at some of the best universities in the world,” says Kalpen Trivedi, UMass Amherst’s vice provost for global affairs and director of the International Programs Office. “Our faculty have enjoyed hosting graduate students from Baden-Württemberg, some of whom return to complete PhDs at UMass. And organic research collaborations have also developed between faculty from both sides in various academic fields, particularly in the area of food science.”

The 60th anniversary of the exchange will be marked this month with a three-day celebration at the Ministry of Science, Research, and the Arts in Stuttgart, Germany, with participation by guests from across the University of Massachusetts system and the nine Baden-Württemberg research universities.

Learn more about this program.

Like what you read here? Visit our website to explore more UMass Amherst research and innovation, or sign up to receive the Revolutionary Research e-newsletter in your inbox four times a year for more great news, stories, and profiles of researchers. Next issue drops in early November.

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