Summer Internship Program Returns This Year, Continuing a Tradition of Success

Beginning in September, phones at the NCI Campus at Frederick will begin to be replaced, as the project to upgrade the current phone system ramps up. Over the next 16 months, the Information Systems Program will be working with Facilities Maintenance and Engineering and Computer & Statistical Services to replace the current Avaya phone system with a Cisco Unified Communications phone system. The Cisco system is already in use at the Advanced Technology Research Facility.

Every year for the past three years, student interns Madelyne Xiao and Nikhil Gowda have competed in the Scientific Library’s Student Science Jeopardy Tournament, the annual science event for students that mirrors the popular TV show “Jeopardy.” And every year, for the past three years, Xiao and Gowda, who work with Randall Johnson, Ph.D. bioinformatics analyst, Basic Science Program Center for Cancer Research Genetics Core, have finished in one of the top three positions.

Joseph Barchi, Jr, Ph.D., calls teaching “the noblest and most important profession.” So it makes sense that Barchi, senior scientist and head of the Glycoconjugate and NMR Section, Chemical Biology Laboratory, Center for Cancer Research, NCI at Frederick, would encourage his lab to offer a fun, educational program at Take Your Child to Work Day (TYCTWD).

When the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infects a cell, the virus inserts a copy of its genetic material into the host cell’s DNA. The inserted genetic material, which is also called a provirus, is used to produce new viruses. Because the viral DNA can be inserted at many sites in the host cell DNA, the site of integration marks each infected cell.

A new genetically engineered mouse model appears promising as an effective tool for preclinical testing of novel therapies for ovarian cancer, which tends to be diagnosed in late stage. There are few effective treatments for the disease.