CCR Grand Rounds April 26: Dr. John T. Schiller, Senior Investigator, Laboratory of Cellular Oncology, CCR, NCI. "Recent Advances in Prophylactic HPV/Cervical Cancer Vaccines" May 3: Dr. Curtis C. Harris, Chief, Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis, CCR, NCI. "Chronic Inflammation and Cancer: Radical Causes of Cancer" CCR Grand Rounds are held 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. at the NIH campus in Bethesda, Md., in the Clinical Center's Lipsett Amphitheater.

DEA coordinates all NCI extramural programs and grants, provides scientific peer review and oversight of extramural research, and coordinates and administers advisory activities related to the NCI mission. It also establishes and disseminates extramural policies and procedures and tracks the NCI research portfolio.

Dr. Gray earned her B.S. in biology from Tuskegee University and later received her M.S. in mycology and Ph.D. in cellular and developmental biology from Atlanta University. She was a Josiah Macy Jr. Fellow at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory and a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany. Dr. Gray joined NCI in 1984 and has held a number of administrative positions at NCI as well as senior advisory posts at HHS.

caBIG Meeting with Commercial Sector Planned for Next Fall
NCI's cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid (caBIG) management is planning a meeting in early fall 2005 to discuss and encourage involvement in the year-old program by the commercial and industrial sectors, caBIG Director Dr. Ken Buetow announced April 12 at the opening session of the caBIG annual meeting (NCI Cancer Bulletin April 12). "One of the reasons we're formally exploring how to engage the commercial sector is that we have a fair number of them already knocking at the caBIG door expressing interest in such business models," Dr. Buetow explained. Such private sector involvement will not change the program's fundamental principles of "open source, open access, open development" or lessen the primary role of the Cancer Centers, he added. "However, we're hoping that as caBIG moves forward and matures, industry will see viable business models in the ongoing development and support of caBIG-based tools." The annual meeting attracted 350 attendees and included 47 poster sessions on first-generation caBIG tools and standards.

NCI Launches C-GEMS Project
NCI is launching a strategic initiative that will use the cutting-edge technology of whole genome single nucleotide polymorphism scans to help identify inherited susceptibility genes for breast and prostate cancer. The Cancer Genetic Markers of Susceptibility (C-GEMS) project is an enterprise activity in NCI's DCEG and the NCI Core Genotyping Facility, with collaboration from the Cancer Genome Anatomy Project.

C-GEMS represents a resource for the strategic partnerships between intramural and extramural groups that are joining forces to incorporate genomic and other emerging technologies in large-scale epidemiologic studies (NCI Cancer Bulletin, February 24, 2004).

The 3-year project will leverage a series of current intramural and extramural resources - including component studies of the Cohort Consortium, NCI's core genotyping capabilities, and caBIG - at an estimated cost of approximately $14 million. The overall project goal is to accelerate the discovery of susceptibility or modifier genes in these cancers through this collaborative network. The project will be coordinated by Drs. Stephen Chanock and Robert Hoover, along with Dr. David Hunter, an NCI Eminent Scholar. A distinguished panel of extramural scientists is being convened to provide guidance and evaluation.

A key goal of C-GEMS is rapid dissemination of results to the scientific community. The detection of linkage from genome scans will need to be followed by fine mapping and candidate gene inclusion/exclusion studies. For this purpose, the datasets will be made quickly available via caBIG to the entire research community.

Mirkin to Speak at Nanotech Seminar
Dr. Chad A. Mirkin, George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry and director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern University, is the next featured speaker in NCI's Nanotechnology Seminar Series. Dr. Mirkin's lecture will take place April 26, from 3:00-4:00 p.m. in the Masur Auditorium on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Md. The presentation will be webcast at http://videocast.nih.gov. For more information, go to http://nano.cancer.gov/events_nanotech_seminar_series.asp.