For the first time, the Spring Research Festival (SRF), scheduled for May 8 and 9, will be sponsored by all of the agencies that are part of the National Interagency Confederation for Biological Research.

The National Interagency Confederation for Biological Research (NICBR) announced the 2012 NICBR Collaboration Project Award (CPA) Program winners in December. The award, the first of its kind for NICBR, was adapted from the National Cancer Institute’s Young Investigator Award Program. This year, the CPA was bestowed to three research projects pertaining to collaborations between NICBR agencies.

In the 1990s, when Joseph Mayo, D.V.M, ran out of gas leading coworkers home from a meeting in Bethesda, he pulled over to the side of the road on I-270 and waited for help. He didn’t have to wait long; within a few minutes a passing motorist took pity on the group of scientists and offered them a lift back to Fort Detrick.

The Biopharmaceutical Development Program (BDP) at the Frederick National Laboratory is, for the first time ever, in a single building at the Advanced Technology Research Facility. At Fort Detrick, BDP operations were spread out in about a dozen buildings, resulting in redundancies in maintaining various utilities (air handlers, clean steam, WFI, etc.) for multiple buildings rather than one.

The Laboratory of Proteomics and Analytical Technologies, Antibody Characterization Laboratory, and Protein Chemistry Laboratory, previously located on different floors or in different buildings, are now together on the first floor of C wing in the ATRF.