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.

Scientists at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNL) and their National Cancer Institute colleagues have developed a method that enhances the capacity to identify interactions between proteins and molecules that are critical to drug targeting. The study, reported in Science Advances, includes libraries to aid other researchers.

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 lockdowns during 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, temporarily paused most laboratory work, but they didn’t stop science from moving forward. Many scientists, including those comprising what’s now NCI’s Center for Structural Biology (CSB), seized the opportunity while out of the lab to revisit previously collected data. Those efforts are paying off.