Because the future for children with cancer rests on the doctors and researchers who are being trained today, CURE fully funds two pediatric oncology fellows at the Emory University School of Medicine. We believe it is crucial to have new teams of skilled researchers prepared to carry on the search for the cure.
Over the past few years, CURE has been responsible for the training of nine fellows, all of whom are now pediatric oncologists. These doctors have gone on to top pediatric cancer hospitals all over the country, allowing CURE to touch the lives of countless children with cancer in communities nationwide.
CURE’s Current Fellows:
Dr. Jonathan Metts (Sam Robb Fellow)
Dr. Metts grew up in Lexington, South Carolina. He attended Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC, from 2001-2005 where he majored in Biology and obtained a minor in History. During his undergraduate time, he was a research assistant under the mentorship of Charles Schwartz, Ph.D., and was involved in performing genetic linkage analysis studies on families with Aarskog Syndrome, a rare form of X linked mental retardation, in attempt to locate the genetic origin of the disease.
He was accepted and obtained his M.D. degree from the University of South Carolina in 2009. As a research assistant during medical school, Dr. Metts worked with an epidemiologist names Dr. Cunningham, on a project to attempt to map the normal lymphatic structure of the human breast to better understand if the risk of metastasis of certain breast cancers could be related to their depth in the breast tissue.
Following medical school, he attended and successfully completed his Pediatric residency at University of South Florida. Throughout medical school and residency Dr. Metts had glowing remarks concerning his medical knowledge, work ethics and compassionate nature. He is currently interested in Bone marrow transplantation for both his research and clinical career.
Dr. David Siegel
Dr. Siegel grew up in Denver Colorado where his family still resides. He attended and graduated from Washington University in St. Louis Missouri where he majored in both Biology and Religious Studies and obtained a B.A. degree. He then was accepted at George Washington University for Medical School and was awarded as a Gill Summer Research Fellow, where he researched and assisted in a study examining the epidemiology of inflammatory breast cancer (IBC). His study was presented as a poster at the 2005 Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium and the 2006 George Washington University Annual Research Day poster forum.
Also during medical school, he obtained an MPH degree and his MPH thesis, investigated the epidemiology of childhood tuberculosis at Children’s National Medical Center (CNMC) and prepared the hospital annual tuberculosis risk infection report. He was the first-author of a study evaluating the accuracy of using a national database to ascertain tuberculosis incidence as a way to track tuberculosis incidence in the future.
He then attended and completed his Pediatric Residency program at Emory University School of Medicine. During residency he worked and did his research under the mentorship of Dr. Ann Mertens at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Cancer Survivor Program on a study looking at renal late effects of cancer treatment. Patients seen two years after treatment are followed in the survivor clinic and are entered into a clinical and research database. His study uses chart review of patients in this database from 2001 to 2009 to look at reported renal late effects with the goal of evaluating current screening guidelines and elucidating which exposures put our patients at most risk for renal late effects. He plans to continue survivorship and late effects research during his fellowship.
