There’s a small, fenced enclosure a stone’s throw from NCI Frederick’s pavilion, just across the street from Building 538. Drawing near to it, you’d see two layers of fence encircling a sapling. If you’re botanically inclined, you might recognize the sharp, five-lobed leaves marking the tree as a Liquidambar styraciflua, a sweetgum—a common species in Maryland. You could be forgiven, then, if you’d think the fences are overkill. Yet this sweetgum is particularly worth protecting.

Researchers from around the world met in October to mark progress their field has made in developing drugs to treat cancers driven by the RAS oncogene, and to map out even more ways they can help cancer patients. “This is a great story about tackling an intractable disease that was said to be an impossible task,” said National Cancer Institute Director W. Kimryn Rathmell, M.D.

When people reminisce about the late David Derse, Ph.D., several words invariably get mentioned. Scholar. Mentor. Insightful. Caring. Many who knew him fondly recall him as an exemplar of the intellectual and compassionate sides of science. The same has been said about Carol A. Carter, Ph.D., SUNY distinguished professor at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, who recently came to NCI Frederick to deliver a scientific lecture in Derse’s honor.

There’s a frequent tendency for employees to resort to the transportation box to get from floor to floor—an elevator. All conveniences aside, Occupational Health Services (OHS) has been using educational incentives and the chance to be entered into a raffle to encourage employees to think about their cardiovascular health and take the stairs.

A scientist pushes a small gray button on a red metal box, activating a pump that shoots clear fluids from two syringes into a small compartment just a few square centimeters in size. From there, the mixture is forced through a thin tube into a thumb-sized glass vial, where it pools with a few small bubbles. That scientist, Caleb Anderson, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at NCI Frederick’s Chemical Biology Laboratory, was hired to solve a problem, and this machine and its contents represent the solution he has spent months designing, calibrating, and testing. The mixture contains tens of