Eliza Davis (right), an NCI at Frederick student intern, discusses her scientific poster with Terry Alban, superintendent, Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS), and Mike Markoe, deputy superintendent, FCPS.
One of the highlights of the 19th annual Spring Research Festival (SRF), held May 4–7, was a visit from Terry Alban, Ph.D., superintendent of Frederick County Public Schools (FCPS), and Mike Markoe, deputy superintendent, FCPS.
They toured the event on May 7, talking to researchers and students about their posters. “Dr. Alban was very interested in hearing what the Werner H. Kirsten students were presenting at their posters,” said Andrea Frydl, public affairs specialist, Office of Scientific Operations, NCI at Frederick. “Many WHK students are also FCPS students, some of whom Dr. Alban and Dr. Markoe knew personally.” Alban tweeted (@FCPSMDSuper) photos and information about four of the students whose posters she visited during the tour.
On May 6 and 7, the SRF featured more than 200 posters describing the scientific research of the partner agencies of the National Interagency Confederation for Biological Research (NICBR), the sponsor of the event.
The week of events also included the NICBR Scientific Symposium on May 4, which was open to all postdoctoral fellows, postbaccalaureates, technical staff, and graduate students working for NICBR partner agencies. Twenty-six researchers spoke about topics such as the molecular characterization of cancer, cancer treatment and target discovery, and new therapeutic tools.
The NICBR Research Collaboration Forum on May 5 invited speakers who had worked on a collaborative project between two or more NICBR partners at Fort Detrick. This year’s collaborations spanned the spectrum of biological research, and talks were given on dengue virus, Middle East respiratory syndrome, and human papillomavirus. Each of the presenters was a winner of last year’s Scientific Interaction Subcommittee (SIS) collaborative project award program. The award program provides up to $10,000 to each winner to use toward scientific research materials. After the collaboration forum, the NICBR partners hosted a special afternoon Ebola Virus Mini Symposium, in which speakers described research related to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
More than 20 researchers provided brief overviews of their SRF posters at the Poster Blitz on May 6.
