NCI Frederick Postbac Fellows Committee Celebrates ‘Graduating’ Postbacs with Fellows Sendoff Potluck

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.

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.

When Amy Stull, a 2000 graduate of Walkersville High School, began working in a laboratory at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at Frederick, she likely did not know the role NCI would play in her career. Stull started at NCI as a Werner H. Kirsten (WHK) student intern after her junior year of high school, working in a lab as she prepared for a career in chemical engineering. The student intern program pairs rising high school seniors with laboratory scientists to encourage the students to pursue careers in both science and health care fields.

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.