By Melissa Porter, Staff Writer
For the past 16 years, the annual Spring Research Festival has been sponsored by NCI at Frederick and Fort Detrick to acquaint fellow researchers, students, and the community at large with the important discoveries being made at this facility to fight cancer, AIDS, and other infectious diseases.
By Ashley DeVine, Staff Writer
Deborah Morrison, Ph.D., laboratory chief, Laboratory of Cell and Developmental Signaling, Center for Cancer Research (CCR), received an NIH Director’s Award in June “for major breakthroughs in elucidating the mechanisms of Ras/Raf signaling that will be critical for diagnosis and treatment of disease,” according to the NIH Director’s Awards Ceremony brochure.
She was nominated by Ira Daar, Ph.D., senior investigator, Developmental Signal Transduction Section, Laboratory of Cell and Developmental Signaling, CCR.
By Nancy Parrish, Staff Writer
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) targets specific immune cells in the body known as macrophages because these are the cells that eliminate foreign material such as bacteria or viruses. HIV is able to reproduce and spread throughout the body if it can avoid destruction by macrophages.
A recent study by Lue Dai, Ph.D., and colleagues revealed that the human cytokine IL-27 helps promote the body’s production of macrophages that are resistant to HIV. The study further found that IL-27 suppresses a gene known as SPTBN1, which facilitates the survival of HIV cells. This breakthrough research was recently published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
By Nancy Parrish, Staff Writer
Earlier this year, the Office of AIDS Research (OAR) awarded two, two-year grants of $200,000 each to Anu Puri, Ph.D., and Robert Blumenthal, Ph.D., both of the Center for Cancer Research (CCR) Nanobiology Program, and to Eric Freed, Ph.D., of the HIV Drug Resistance Program, for their research on potential new treatments for HIV.
By Nancy Parrish, Staff Writer
The winner of the 2012 competition for the best collaborative publication was announced on May 7, as part of the lead-up to the Spring Research Festival sponsored by the National Interagency Confederation for Biological Research (NICBR) and the National Cancer Institute at Frederick on May 8 and 9.
By Frank Blanchard, Staff Writer
Armed with an array of leading-edge technologies, scientific and technical expertise, and the full backing of the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI’s) scientific advisers, the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNLCR) is preparing to launch a full-scale attack against an intractable problem: the cancer-causing family of Ras genes.
By Ashley DeVine, Staff Writer
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 (NICBR).
Courtesy of the NICBR Public Affairs/Community Relations Subcommittee
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 (NCI’s) Young Investigator Award Program. This year, the CPA was bestowed to three research projects pertaining to collaborations between NICBR agencies.
By Carolynne Keenan, Guest Writer
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.
By Ken Michaels, Staff Writer
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 (ATRF).
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.
