Robot R, part of NCI Frederick’s new automated apparatus for screening potential cancer therapeutics, uses its arm to meticulously fill the wells of a 384-well plate with droplets of human tumor cell cultures smaller than a raindrop. Robot L stands at the ready on the other side of the apparatus, awaiting its own instructions. Laboratory staff members work nearby, but after they load the apparatus with the supplies it needs, the robotic system carries on independently.

A new U.S. clinical trial will evaluate whether an at-home, self-collection technique to screen for cervical cancer is as accurate and effective as a Pap smear test done in a healthcare clinic. The Clinical Monitoring Research Program Directorate (CMRPD) at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research will coordinate the National Cancer Institute (NCI) study to be conducted at 25 sites.

The Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNL) has a new installation: a wall featuring 34 plaques highlighting patents granted to FNL researchers in recognition of their inventions and the breakthrough work being done at the laboratory. The “Innovations in Research” wall represents the mission of FNL staff to address some of the most urgent challenges in the biomedical sciences.

The Scientific Library is moving into a new dimension: a “library without walls.” Capitalizing on its identity beyond its physical location, the library will adopt a greater focus on connecting people to information, ideas, and each other and will ultimately shed its brick-and-mortar space in Building 549. The Scientific Library as an online library will focus on being a transformational hub of resources, not just a transactional place to check out books.

Mickey Williams, Ph.D., jokes that he was “somewhat doomed to become a molecular biologist” from the very start, born within mere hours of a milestone in the field. The same day in 1953 that Francis Crick and James Watson heralded their discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure — “the secret of life,” Crick triumphantly called it at The Eagle pub in Cambridge—Williams’ own life began in a maternity ward half a world away.