PC3I Fellow Debanjan Pain, MD has been selected as a recipient of the 2024 ASCO Conquer Cancer Young Investigator Award for a project supporting patients with prostate cancer in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Young Investigator Award provides research funding to promising young physicians to encourage quality research in clinical oncology as they transition to a faculty appointment.

The burden of prostate cancer throughout Sub-Saharan Africa is increasing, with a significant proportion of patients presenting with metastatic disease. Dr. Pain’s Young Investigator Award proposal outlines the necessary steps to mitigate barriers to efficient and optimal care delivery for patients with prostate cancer and other genitourinary malignancies in low- and middle-income countries. Leveraging the decades-long Botswana-UPenn partnership, his research strives to understand where delays arise in prostate cancer treatment and to learn directly from patients and providers, through qualitative interviews, about the care delivery cascade. Results from this study will inform future research efforts to develop interventions to provide access to timely treatment.

Dr. Pain’s mentors on this project included Penn faculty and local oncologists in Gaborone, Botswana, including PC3I faculty Katharine Rendle, Surbhi Grover, and Lawrence Shulman. He also worked with Yehoda Martei, Robert Gross, and Naomi Haas. Now finishing his hematology-oncology fellowship, Dr. Pain plans to continue his work in health services research in Botswana in his next role as Assistant Professor at MD Anderson Cancer Center.