Euna Yoo, Ph.D., has found what she calls “the perfect place” to begin her career as an independent researcher—the Chemical Biology Laboratory at NCI at Frederick. The 11-year-old laboratory is an internationally recognized program that performs basic science to develop and apply chemical tools, methods, and materials to understand and alter biological processes involved in cancer and AIDS.
Jason Evans is giving me a tour of the new NCI Program for Natural Products Discovery (NPNPD) facility when he pauses to look at a sample-handling robot under repair, its mechanical insides temporarily disemboweled. I ask if he has an electrical engineering background, and he laughs. Evans is a scientific programmer, but for him and his colleagues, that’s beside the point.
Nearly two decades ago, NIH’s first female director formed a task force to evaluate the status of women scientists in the Intramural Research Program. The resulting report led to the creation of the Women Scientist Advisors, a group that counsels senior leaders in each institute and center on issues facing women in the sciences.
On November 19, an internationally renowned virologist will visit NCI at Frederick to deliver a lecture in the Building 549 auditorium. Beatrice Hahn, M.D., was invited by the NCI HIV Dynamics and Replication Program, which is hosting her as the speaker and recipient of the Eighth Annual David Derse Memorial Lecture and Award.
Ulrich Baxa, Ph.D., and his team are helping to move a microscope the size of a minivan. The behemoth, a Titan Krios, is making the 29-mile trek from a Gaithersburg, Maryland, laboratory to its new home at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research.
The Scientific Library at NCI at Frederick provides resources and services to support cutting-edge cancer, AIDS, and infectious disease research, and the librarians and informationists are ready to guide researchers to any information they need. Within the past year, two new staff members began working at the Scientific Library: Biosciences Informationist Matt Stirling and Public Services Librarian Joelle Mornini. Librarian Tracie Frederick, who has been with the Scientific Library for 12 years, also stepped into the role of Library Director in 2018.
Scientists at NCI at Frederick, the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, and four Chinese institutions have uncovered why glioblastoma, the deadliest form of brain cancer, is more aggressive in diabetic patients than nondiabetic patients. The team’s paper asserts that high amounts of a sugar called glucose trigger multiple biological processes that snowball to increase glioblastoma’s aggressiveness.
Each summer, dozens of students from the Werner H. Kirsten and Summer Internship Programs who have been hard at work under the supervision of seasoned scientists and mentors gather to share their research with the NCI at Frederick and Frederick National Laboratory community. Over two days in late July, 46 students ranging from high school to graduate school presented their findings to mentors, scientists, and their fellow interns at the NCI at Frederick campus and the Advanced Technology Research Facility.
Editor’s note: The following is a retrospective commentary on the Werner H. Kirsten Student Internship Program from a recent alumni.
Here I was, an 18-year-old student intern with a chance to interview a prominent research scientist and suddenly, face-to-face with her, I ran out of questions. Silence filled the room. Now what? My Urbana High School classes had not prepared me to answer that question. Well, they had not prepared me to interview a scientist, either.
“Here are lions.” This fanciful phrase for the unknown embellishes the blank areas of antiquated maps. Sometimes cartographers used the phrase “Terra Incognita” (“unknown land”) instead. Either way, the message was clear: we don’t know what’s beyond this point. The modern study of genetics is similar.
