Dr. Samuel Evans Adunyah is the Contact-PI/PD for the Meharry RCMI Health Disparities Research Center with Dr. James Hildreth, President and CEO of Meharry Medical College, as the MPI. Together, they provide leadership as PIs/PDs and Admin Core Directors for the current NIMHD U54 grant from 2022 to 2027. Dr. Adunyah received his PhD degree in Biochemistry from University of Louisville, KY in 1987 followed by a postdoctoral training in cancer research at the Cancer Treatment and Research Center in the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM. He joined Meharry in 1991 as a tenure-track Assistant Professor. He became a tenured full professor in 2003. Previously, Dr. Adunyah served as the PD/PI of Meharry Clinical Translational Research Center (MeTRC) U54 grant from 2009 to 2020. In 1999, Dr. Adunyah and Dr. Hal Moses, the Founding Director and PI of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, started the cancer partnership between Meharry and Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and received their first U54 funding in 2001 to address cancer health disparities in Tennessee. In 2011, they admitted Tennessee State University to this partnership to create Meharry-Vanderbilt-TSU (MVT) Cancer partnership. This partnership’s U54 grant has successfully been renewed for five cycles and Dr. Adunyah continues to serve as a PI for the Meharry’s component. As the PI of the MVT partnership U54 grant for 22 years, Dr. Adunyah has led the Admin Core for Meharry’s component. He has extensive experience with leading, directing, managing, and advancing the growth of NCI U54-funded Cancer Partnership Programs. As the Contact-PI and Director of the Admin Core for Meharry’s RCMI U54 Program, Dr. Adunyah will work closely with Dr. James Hildreth (MPI/PD) and together they will provide outstanding leadership to ensure the success of the RCMI program. This extensive leadership of U54-funded programs has enriched his experiences in managing 3 U54 grants from two NIH institutes. Dr. Adunyah is also the Chair of Department of Biochemistry, Cancer Biology, Neuroscience and Pharmacology at Meharry. As chair of department for over 23 years, he has successfully recruited, supervised, and mentored many successful Early-Stage Investigators at Meharry Medical College. Previously, he was the PI for his department’s NHLBI T32 Pre-doctoral Training grant for 21 years. As a mentor for pre-doctoral trainees, he has trained and graduated 13 PhD trainees including 9 minorities and mentored several postdoctoral trainees from his laboratory. Most of his PhD trainees have become successful including three who are now Hematologists/Oncologists and three professors. He has served on over 64 PhD Thesis Advisory Committees. He has served on several NIH Study Sections and Special Emphasis Review Panels including the NCI’s former Cancer Molecular Pathobiology Study Section, NHLBI T32, T35 Review Panel, F30/F31/F32 NRSA Fellowship Review Panels, NCI’s Review Panel for Diversity R21 grants, NCI’s P20 SPORE program, NIGMS IDeA-CTR (U54) program, as well as Howard Hughes Medical Fellowship Application Review Panel. Furthermore, he is a PI for ACS grant from 20021 to 2025. At the national level, he previously served on the AACR’s Science Policy Committee and the Government Affairs Committee of ASH for 2 years. He was a recent reviewer for AACR abstracts for the 2022 annual meeting and currently a member of Review Panel for the AACR Immunology Fellowship.