March 2018

If you're interested in presenting a poster for the Spring Research Festival or signing up as a judge, don't forget to register by Monday, April 2.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its list of clinics that are administering the yellow fever vaccine Stamaril, which has been made available to address the total depletion of the United States’ primary yellow fever vaccine, YF-VAX. These clinics will provide the vaccine to individuals preparing for international travel, including NCI at Frederick staff and scientists.

Spring is here again, and with it come scientific meetings and spring vacations. Some of the scientists and staff at NCI at Frederick will be traveling across the globe in the next few months, so Occupational Health Services would like to share a few tips for staying healthy while traveling.

One of NCI at Frederick’s two offspring of the Wye Oak tree that lived for nearly 500 years in Talbot County, Maryland, has found a new home on campus. The move was necessitated by upgrades to Chiller Plant #5 and the associated water piping routes on the west side of building 560.  

A collaboration between the National Cancer Institute (NCI); the Frederick National Laboratory (FNL); and the National University of Ireland, Galway, has shown that two key biomarkers are co-expressed in an aggressive subtype of breast cancer and that inhibiting those two molecules can significantly improve patient survival outcomes. 

There are many safety rules and regulations designed to keep us safe as we carry out our individual tasks at NCI, but this issue of the O&M Newsletter is all about evacuation. Specifically, it highlights the importance of the systems and components that ensure the safe evacuation of all building occupants in emergency situations.

Last week, Director Norman E. “Ned” Sharpless spoke with Paul Goldberg, editor and publisher of The Cancer Letter, regarding his six-month “listening tour,” a project he embarked on after being named the new director, as well as his vision for the National Cancer Institute (NCI).