January 2020

NCI at Frederick and FNL Staff Receive Several NCI Director’s Awards

National Cancer Institute Director Norman “Ned” Sharpless, M.D., had a message for NCI staff on Monday as he welcomed them to an unorthodox installment of the annual NCI Director’s Awards via video from a bedroom-turned-office inside his house. “The show must go on because you have made sure that the work of the NCI continued and even flourished during a difficult time for our nation and our world,” he said.

WHK Internship Program Presses on with Remote Mentoring During Pandemic

The Werner H. Kirsten Student Intern Program has been a fixture at NCI at Frederick for 31 years, a respected and beloved tradition that has given more than 1,200 high school seniors a unique learning opportunity. This summer, it even received one of the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring from the National Science Foundation. So when the COVID-19 pandemic threatened to break the three-decade streak this school year, dedicated staff and scientists stepped up to ensure the tradition would continue.

Under the Microscope: CLIA Labs Follow Meticulous Protocols to Maintain Certification

As the director of the Molecular Diagnostics Laboratory, Gordon Whiteley has one message for his team: “Treat every sample as if it were your own, your mother’s, or (from) someone you care about.” Whiteley and his team, part of the Cancer Research Technology Program at the Frederick National Laboratory, work in a high-complexity lab at the Advanced Technology Research Facility that operates under rigorous standards of the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments. The tests developed by the lab (one of five high-complexity labs associated with FNL) generally are not available anywhere else.

Science Thrives in Welcoming, Collegial Chemical Biology Laboratory

Euna Yoo, Ph.D., has found what she calls “the perfect place” to begin her career as an independent researcher—the Chemical Biology Laboratory at NCI at Frederick. The 11-year-old laboratory is an internationally recognized program that performs basic science to develop and apply chemical tools, methods, and materials to understand and alter biological processes involved in cancer and AIDS.