After a one-year pause, the NIH Summer Internship Program (SIP) is back. A cohort of students will join NCI Frederick again this summer. Returning with an emphasis on scientific positions, the program has stirred considerable enthusiasm—and memories of past successes.

Genevieve Burns and her teammates watched as another team’s tiny robotic car collided with their own. Then the shouting started. “Get out of our way!” came the gleefully impatient cries from both teams. “Move it, people! Move it!”

In the vermilion-gold light of a humid June morning, groups of visitors fanned out across the NCI Frederick campus. Most weren’t scientists—not yet, at least. Still, they entered laboratories and work areas, though it quickly became apparent that some were barely tall enough to see over the lab countertops. That didn’t stop them from trying.

A new drug and vaccine delivery method that utilizes synthetic bacterial nanoparticles could improve chemotherapy treatments, and a groundbreaking alternative to drilled wells may soon be breaking ground in agricultural areas. The Federal Laboratory Education Accelerator and the work of Master of Business Administration (MBA) students across the country are helping move these and other far-ranging technologies out of the laboratory and into the market.

A hawk circles high above NCI Frederick. A blackbird hops along a steam pipe, its talons clicking on the metal. Sparrows flit from tree to tree. Geese are gathered on the grass. Birds are regular visitors to NCI Frederick, and thanks to a months-long project, some now have a better chance to make the campus their home this spring.