Meet the UB cancer research students pushing for affordable health insurance | Video

Emily Isenhart is wrapping up a project focused on developing a novel treatment for Ewing sarcoma, a bone cancer that affects children and young adults. Stephen Goralski is researching how a person’s age affects the ability of tumors to produce new blood vessels.

Even as they work in the high-stakes, competitive world of cancer research, Isenhart and Goralski for the last two years have found themselves with something more immediate and personal to worry about: Their own struggles to afford health insurance.

Isenhart and Goralski are two of about 80 Ph.D. students in the Roswell Park Graduate Division of the University at Buffalo. Those in the division are students at UB, but are paid an annual stipend of around $34,000 by Roswell Park.

UB two years ago discontinued its health insurance plan for domestic students, which has left students in the division annually scrambling to secure an affordable health insurance plan. New York State’s expanded Essential Plan provided them with a temporary solution, but that plan was scaled back July 1 due to federal funding cuts.

Read our related coverage here:

© 2026 The Buffalo News (Buffalo, N.Y.). Visit www.buffalonews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.