Fellowship Program Opens Doors for Minority Researchers

Fellowship Program Opens Doors for Minority Researchers

Fellowship Program Opens Doors for Minority Researchers

by Dana Forde , July 16, 2010

Categories:

• Diversity,Research,Mentorship,Fellowships & Grants,Foundations,Graduate & Professional Schools,Scholarships /

Dr. Cherie Butts, who earned degrees at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center/UT Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, believes her career began to soar when she was chosen as an inaugural Keystone Symposia Fellow.

Dr. Cherié Butts, a researcher and drug reviewer in the Office of Biotechnology Products at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, enjoys her job as a scientist so much that she often prepares for the next day’s projects the night before.

“Some experiments can take three to four days and some can take weeks,” she says. Butts, whose research focus is to decipher how steroid hormones modify immune responses during disease in an effort to develop better therapeutic strategies, feels that one of the few things lacking in her satisfying career is more colleagues of color.

According to a 2006 National Science Foundation study, African-Americans, Hispanics and American Indians make up only 2.65 percent, 3.53 percent, and 0.59 percent, respectively, of life sciences academics at four-year institutions. Precise numbers are