Featured Meetings and Events A calendar of scientific meetings and events sponsored by the National Institutes of Health is available at http://calendar.nih.gov/cgi-bin/calendar

Workshop Addresses Cancer Health Disparities
On November 17-18, virtually all of the top leadership joined more than 200 employees for the first NCI-wide meeting on one of the central issues of the day, "Enhancing Interactions to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities." Program co-chair Dr. Leonora Johnson, director of the Office of Education and Special Initiatives, told the group they were there to help "build synergy around NCI efforts to reduce disparities by enhancing our communications, stimulating our interactions across NCI, and trying hard to leverage our strengths through information sharing and increasing collaboration."

Dr. Mark Clanton, deputy director, NCI, and deputy director for Cancer Care Delivery Systems, remarked that the gathering was another important step toward reducing cancer health disparities, which was recently named one of NCI's seven strategic priorities for reaching the 2015 challenge goal.

Dr. John Niederhuber, deputy director, NCI, and deputy director for Translational and Clinical Sciences, added that "we will not be able to meet those challenges down the road, unless we first solve this crucial issue along the way." He predicted that, in just the next decade, the face of medicine will change dramatically, mediated by new technologies for screening, detection, and genomics. "If we don't figure out how to translate this new era to these special populations, they will be left even further behind. It's a challenge we have to meet…and we will," he said.

Teleconference Focuses on NIH Clinical Center
The next teleconference in the "Understanding NCI" series will take place on December 16 at 1:00 p.m. EST. Interested individuals should call 1-800-857-6584 (Passcode: 4683#). Toll-free playback will be available until 11:30 p.m. EST on Jan. 16, 2006, at 1-800-216-4418.

This teleconference will focus on the NIH Clinical Center and describe how cancer patients participate in clinical research to find new treatments for cancer at NIH's world-renowned research hospital.

Dr. John Gallin, director of the NIH Clinical Center; Dottie Cirelli, Clinical Center patient recruitment coordinator; and Susan Lowell Butler, patient advocate; will discuss clinical trials at NCI. A question and answer session will follow the panelists' presentations.

The "Understanding NCI" teleconference series is sponsored by the NCI Office of Liaison Activities. For additional information, go to http://la.cancer.gov.

Watch Your E-Mail Box!
Keep an eye out for an e-mail later this week asking you to complete an online survey about the NCI Cancer Bulletin.

Since its debut in January 2004, the NCI Cancer Bulletin has provided its readers with a weekly roundup of news from the cancer community - from research highlights to clinical trials to community updates. From December 1-22, you'll have the opportunity to tell us how we're doing by completing an online reader survey.

By completing this short questionnaire, you'll help us to better meet the needs of our readers. Your feedback is vital in shaping future issues of the Bulletin.

All survey responses are confidential and respondents can choose to answer or skip any questions in the survey. For more information, please contact Nina Goodman at goodmann@mail.nih.gov or 301-435-7789.

Special Issue on NCI Training Opportunities
Don't miss next week's NCI Cancer Bulletin, which will highlight training programs at NCI. This special issue will include features about training opportunities in basic, clinical, and population sciences; a comprehensive list of NCI's training resources; and a conversation with John Burklow, a former NCI intern who is now associate director of the NIH Office of Communications.