Science

In the Natural Products Branch, projects demand a level of precision that makes Cinderella’s slipper look like child’s play. However, lab equipment isn’t always tailor-made for such uniqueness, sometimes requiring a little modification with special parts to get the job done. Sometimes those parts aren’t available. It rightly sounds like a headache, but Jason Evans and Matthew Harris say the group regularly pulls it off—at times, even in as little as a day.

The curtain has officially dropped on the Spring Research Festival for another year. With its signature vendor show, poster display, and bevy of lectures, the hybrid event looked much as it did in pre-pandemic times. Yet among the participants, there was an unmistakable impression of eagerness, a recognition of opportunity.

Dogs and humans have been companions throughout recorded history. Our four-legged friends appear in early written tales and are mentioned by name in ancient Egyptian inscriptions. They’ve been with us through thick and thin, and we have truly benefited from this. Recently, that companionship entered a new arena, with dogs becoming humans’ partners in cancer research—and at Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, scientists and engineers have built and deployed a tool to help the medical community maximize canines’ contributions to oncology.

New research by Frederick National Laboratory researchers and their colleagues takes an important step toward explaining complex mutations in a gene called NF1 that is known to cause a disorder known as neurofibromatosis type 1. The study also has potential implications in research against several cancers. 

Frederick National Laboratory’s Academic Summer Trainees Program provides graduate and undergraduate students with the chance to work with and learn from some of the nation’s leading scientists. The program now includes students from several Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and offers them increased access to advanced research and training, along with experience in biomedical programs, cancer research, and state-of-the-art technologies at FNL.

The future of brilliant scientific curiosity and discovery was on full display in August when 12 student interns presented their work during the NCI Frederick Werner H. Kirsten Summer Intern Research Symposium.

Susan Lea, D.Phil., and her team of microscopists at NCI Frederick have a mountain of data on their hands. It would be unwieldy if it weren’t for a partnership with the Enterprise Information Technology Directorate at Frederick National Laboratory. Thanks to their support, Lea and her team in the Center for Structural Biology have all the capacity they need to manage the data in-house.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy is a hot topic in healthcare. Successfully used to treat certain aggressive blood cancers for about a decade now, CAR T cell therapy is capturing the growing interest of oncologists who would like to harness its power to use against other cancer types. At Frederick National Laboratory, the Biopharmaceutical Development Program—a specialized team manufacturing experimental biotherapeutics for NCI—is at the center of an effort to develop CAR T therapies that will expand cancer treatment options, particularly for pediatric malignancies.

One of the annual rites of spring at the National Cancer Institute at Frederick returned in April, when hundreds of members of the Ft. Detrick and Frederick National Laboratory community participated in the virtual Spring Research Festival. The event was co-sponsored by the United States Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC) and the Military & Health Research Foundation (MHRF). 

Look at your fingernails. What comes to mind? Now look at the veins in your arms. What about them? Odds are the words “critical” and “historic” aren’t your first thoughts, but they’d be an apt description. At NCI at Frederick and Frederick National Laboratory, nail clippings and blood specimens are two ways to make a difference in scientific research.