Unsurprisingly, the new Basic Research Program at the Frederick Cancer Research Center took some time to gain momentum despite the preparations that had been made. Margaret Kripke, Ph.D., head of the program’s Immunobiology of Physical and Chemical Carcinogenesis Section at the time, recalls that her first year was dedicated to setting up her new laboratory, hiring staff, moving around, and finishing projects she had started in her former laboratory at University of Utah.

By early 1974, the concept of the first investigator-initiated research program in Frederick was firmly approved. The idea had passed through the necessary channels, and the National Cancer Institute and the Frederick Cancer Research Center set about making it a reality.

As the winter of 1973 turned to spring, the Frederick Cancer Research Center (FCRC), the forerunner to the Frederick National Laboratory and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) at Frederick that exist today, neared the one-year mark since its opening. The more than 250 employees had made sound progress, given the challenges of converting the old Fort Detrick biowarfare facilities into a fledgling cancer center. Their efforts had drawn some attention, too.

The Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, in partnership with NCI and the NIH Clinical Center, recently began asymptomatic COVID-19 testing for government and Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc., staff. This program is voluntary but encouraged for those currently working on-site.

The old adage that says two heads are better than one certainly seems true for Mitchell Ho, Ph.D., a senior investigator in the Center for Cancer Research, and Xiaolin Wu, Ph.D., a principal scientist in the Genomics Technology Laboratory, a CCR Core at the Frederick National Laboratory. Together, these two scientists are using next-generation genomics technology to develop, in an animal model, a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapy that might help patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common type of liver cancer.