Science

Spring Research Festival Returns This Week, but There’s Still Time to Register

Spring has arrived in Frederick, and with it comes a beloved scientific tradition: the Spring Research Festival. Now in its 25th year, the festival brings together scientists, students, support staff, and spectators from across Fort Detrick, NCI at Frederick, and the larger Frederick community. Participants can expect two days of scientific excellence.

Kunio Nagashima Retires: 47 Years of Electron Microscopy Excellence

In 1972, soon after then-President Richard Nixon’s newly established Frederick Cancer Research Center hired its first employees, 24-year-old Kunio Nagashima put on a suit and tie and boarded a Boeing 747 at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport. An electron microscopist from Kyoto University, Nagashima had a one-way ticket in his hand, bound for the United States and ready to take a new job—sight unseen.

Though Rare, HIV Leads to Blood Cancers

HIV plays a direct role in causing blood cell cancers in rare instances, says a new study of HIV and tumor DNA. Scientists have long known that HIV contributes to several cancers by weakening the immune system’s ability to fend off cancer-causing infections. However, this latest study, published in Science Advances this week, is the first to demonstrate HIV as a cause.

Manufacturing and Quality Assurance Expertise by Frederick National Laboratory Supports NCI’s Pioneering Cancer Immunotherapy Program

A grim statistic is driving Steven Rosenberg’s mission to find new cancer treatments—and his partnership with Frederick National Laboratory to do so. “Every year in the United States, about 600,000 people die of cancer, 90% of whom die of the solid epithelial cancers,” said Rosenberg, the M.D., Ph.D., chief of the National Cancer Institute’s Surgery Branch, head of the Tumor Immunology Section at NCI’s Center for Cancer Research.

Microscopists Crowdsource Project to Teach AI

NCI at Frederick’s latest class of student interns continues to telework under pandemic protocols. While that means not working in laboratories or offices as they would in a normal year, it doesn’t mean a lack of opportunities to make a difference in science. In fact, according to Kedar Narayan, Ph.D., volume electron microscopy group leader at the Center for Molecular Microscopy, one opportunity is quite unique.

RAS Initiative: An Ambitious Model Eight Years in

Across the world, conferencing software flicked open on computer screens. It was 8 a.m. in San Francisco, 11 a.m. in Frederick, 5 p.m. in Madrid, 11 p.m. in Hong Kong. The first day of the Third National Cancer Institute RAS Initiative Symposium was about to begin. Time zones notwithstanding, scientists and onlookers were tuning in from offices, studies, and living rooms to watch the livestream of the virtual event.