NCI and FNL Researchers Turn Lessons Learned into Stepping Stones

Next month, the annual Technology Showcase will return to the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research. The event attracts research innovators and business professionals who wish to learn about advanced technologies being developed at the National Cancer Institute and Frederick National Laboratory.

This week, Werner H. Kirsten student interns Emme Tissue and Esteban Garcia are launching a training course that could mean the difference between life and death. The duo will teach a class on halting uncontrolled bleeding in individuals who have experienced traumatic injuries such as gunshot wounds or major lacerations.

Occurring without notice, unscheduled utility outages (mainly electrical) are abrupt and create a nuisance. During an unscheduled electrical power outage, the Operations and Maintenance (O&M) department will monitor stand-by generators for proper operation. During the outage, the critical equipment identified for connection to the generator should be operating.

On October 18, 1971, President Richard Nixon emerged from the U.S. Army Post Headquarters at Fort Detrick into the sunlight of one of Frederick’s signature autumn mornings. Nearby, a crowd of dignitaries, Army officers, and journalists from local and national news outlets had gathered to hear his remarks about the former biowarfare research facility. He greeted them, paused to make a good-natured joke about the Baltimore Orioles, then delivered an announcement that altered the course of biomedical research in the United States.

Govind Kunduri, Ph.D., watched as a bright light illuminated a transparent tube full of mutant fruit flies. Then, as he prepared to collect data, something unexpected occurred: the flies began having seizures. The flies’ surprising behavior seemed epileptic, but Kunduri, a postdoctoral fellow in the Cancer and Developmental Biology Laboratory (CDBL), part of the Center for Cancer Research at NCI at Frederick, hadn’t intended to study epilepsy.