A Paradox and Alan Rein: Distinguished Retrovirologist Retires from the HIV DRP

There are many safety rules and regulations designed to keep us safe as we carry out our individual tasks at NCI, but this issue of the O&M Newsletter is all about evacuation. Specifically, it highlights the importance of the systems and components that ensure the safe evacuation of all building occupants in emergency situations.

A team from the Biopharmaceutical Development Program is developing a new autologous cell therapy line that uses engineered chimeric antigen receptor T cells to treat acute myeloid leukemia, a particularly aggressive form of pediatric blood cancer. This foray into cell immunotherapy represents a new avenue of research and development for the BDP, which has traditionally focused on biologics to fight cancer, HIV, and rare diseases.

Resource management in the form of “outsourcing” continues to be a valuable tool for the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) department. The O&M department uses this resource as an integral part of its approach to customer service.

Oompa Loompas set up shop in the hallways of Building 430. Building 362 shimmered with holiday lights and glitzy casino décor. Someone pitched a tent in the Scientific Library. For the sixth straight year, the Recreation and Welfare Club’s Holiday Decorating Contest transformed parts of NCI at Frederick and the Frederick National Laboratory into whimsical scenes of festive cheer.

As the director of the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory, Gordon Whiteley has one message for his team: “Treat every sample as if it were your own, your mother’s, or (from) someone you care about.” Whiteley and his team, part of the Cancer Research Technology Program at the Frederick National Laboratory, work in a high-complexity lab that operates under rigorous standards of the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments. The tests developed by the lab (one of five high-complexity labs associated with FNL) generally are not available anywhere else.