Below, I’ve inserted a portion of our conversation for this month’s President’s Message, however, I hope you’ll have time to watch the full discussion on the SITC YouTube channel here. 

Myself: We certainly appreciate your contributions SITC, to co-lead our Diversity and Inclusion Task Force, along with our Vice President Dr. Leisha Emens, so thanks so much for your help there. Tell us what you think the roadmap is for this country, and the world, to try to level the playing field in terms of outcomes to diseases like cancer, as well as COVID, where we really saw huge disparities. 

Dr. Odunsi: The roadmap has to include really stepping back and asking questions – how can we restore ability for all people, regardless of identify, background, to thrive in society? How can people realize their full capabilities in society? COVID, as you pointed out, really showed us that we have work to do. Of course we made a lot of progress. I’m very proud University of Chicago has made a lot of progress, but there’s work to be done. We have to get together as a community and really begin to advocate and support efforts to bridge the gap between the underserved populations and others, so that they have access to some of the socio-economic abilities that will allow them to gain access to adequate healthcare, education and so on and so forth. 

It’s really in the context of a bigger national issue, and I think we need to be deliberate, and really sit back and tackle, not just related to health, but it hinges on education, jobs, food security – all of those issues have to be on the table. 

Myself: There’s a really huge area that we can all participate in. What recommendations would you give to other SITC members and others in the field of tumor immunology, for what we can do to try and level the playing field, and start to make some of the changes we feel are necessary? 

Dr. Odunsi: One of the major recommendations has to be for us to pay attention to making sure we provide opportunities to underrepresented minorities in medicine, in health sciences, in research, so that we can create a pipeline – a continuous flow of individuals who will be qualified to take on some of the things you and I are doing right now. We need to essentially build a succession plan that is inclusive, that allows all people to have opportunity to be able to reach the full extent of their talent. Those types of programs have to start very early, from elementary to high school. What kind of opportunities are we putting together for high school students? What kind of opportunities are we putting together for undergrads to rotate in labs or in hospitals?

 All of these efforts in partnership with institutions that are devoted to minorities I think will be very helpful. There are institutions in this country where underrepresented minorities are the majority in those institutions, and I think engaging those institutions could be helpful to filling that pipeline. 

Again, to view the full fireside chat, please click here. 

Thank you once again to Dr. Odunsi for joining me this month. There is still much work ahead, but I’m grateful to have minds like Dr. Odunsi, among many others, helping to identify and execute ways that our society can positively affect our field to improve the overall representation and contribution from minorities.