From Saint Louis to Kampala: Lily McMorrow Takes Cancer Research Global

From Saint Louis to Kampala: Lily McMorrow Takes Cancer Research Global

Lily McMorrow has earned an NIH LAUNCH Fellowship to advance cancer research at the Uganda Cancer Institute in Kampala.

McMorrow, a fifth-year M.D./Ph.D. student at Saint Louis University, brings her research to an international stage, exploring the impact of international funding disruptions on cervical cancer prevention, the leading cause of cancer death among Ugandan women. Her work reveals SLU's commitment to health equity and global service.

"Lily is one of our highly talented M.D./Ph.D. students at the School of Medicine," said Jane McHowat, Ph.D., program director. "She truly embodies our program's mission to promote academic excellence in both clinical medicine and disease-based scientific research."

The Launching Future Leaders in Global Health (LAUNCH) is a U.S National Institute of Health (NIH) Fogarty International Center initiative that supports mentored, one-year global health research training at established biomedical and health research institutions and field sites in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Receiving the fellowship was a surprising and validating experience for McMorrow, who felt honored by the vote of confidence in her work.

"I was ecstatic, and honestly a little stunned," McMorrow said. "Being named a fellow as a graduate student felt like an extraordinary vote of confidence. The opportunity to function as a principal investigator, managing my own research team, overseeing a grant budget, and conducting independent research with NIH support, is something I could not have imagined happening this early in my career."

McMorrow's path to Global Health began during her undergraduate studies in Justice and Peace Studies. She spent a summer in Rwanda at the Gashora Girls' Academy for Science and Technology, working in the international development space.

It was during this time that she observed, through stories shared by young women in Rwanda, how profoundly health shaped their lives, educational opportunities, and their future. That experience led her to this research.

For McMorrow, this research is deeply personal and tied to a larger purpose.

"Saint Louis University's mission calls us to be people in service of others, to recognize the dignity of every person and to work towards a more just world," McMorrow said. "For me, that mission has never felt abstract. It is the reason I am drawn to global health, and it is what drives me to study the ways in which structural and systemic forces: poverty, political instability, the withdrawal of international funding, shape whether a woman in Uganda lives or dies from a preventable cancer."

Looking ahead, she aspires to be the kind of physician and researcher who brings clinical expertise, rigorous evidence, and deep respect for the communities she serves. She believes that this fellowship is a crucial step in becoming that person.

McMorrow said that groundbreaking independent research requires a strong institutional environment. The structural support and collaborative environment at Saint Louis University serves as the launchpad for her high-impact global health goals, providing her with the practical toolset needed to bring her vision to life.

"Saint Louis University has given me both a strong methodological foundation and a genuinely interdisciplinary training environment that shaped how I approach research," McMorrow said. "I am also deeply grateful to my M.D./Ph.D. program and the peers within it. Navigating the M.D./Ph.D. path is not something you do alone, and the community of fellow students, the support of my program director Jane McHowat, Ph.D., Associate Dean Brittany M. Hollister, Ph.D., and the administrative dedication of Linda Waller have been foundational to getting me to this point. I feel genuinely lucky to be part of this program."

McMorrow also named Amanda Izzo, Ph.D., Kelsey Mesmer, Ph.D., Anne Sebert-Kuhlmann, Ph.D., Amy Bilyeu, Ph.D., Noor Al-Hammadi, Ph.D., as mentors who provided intellectual guidance as she developed her research focus. She further highlighted the profound contributions of fellowship mentors, some of whom are affiliated with Washington University in Saint Louis, including experts in global health, oncology, and implementation science, whose guidance has been central to developing her project.

McMorrow believes that staying genuinely curious and reading insatiably, both within and outside your scientific field, is essential. Ultimately, the better you understand the world, the better equipped you are to ask meaningful questions about it.

" At its core, it comes down to this: where you were born should not determine your health. The problems are real, and they are urgent, and there is meaningful work to be done," McMorrow said.