NCI Cancer Bulletin Publication Break Because today's issue is the last one of the year, the editors and writers of the NCI Cancer Bulletin would like to wish all of our readers a happy and healthy holiday season. We will resume publication on our usual bi-weekly schedule with the January 8, 2008 issue.

NCI Issues Web-Based Resources for Tracking Cancer Trends
NCI has released the Cancer Trends Progress Report: 2007 Update (CTPR) and the first phase of a Web site developed by the Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network (CISNET) featuring colorectal cancer mortality projections. The two online resources are linked where data are presented on colorectal cancer and mortality. Useful to policy makers, program planners, and other decision makers, they provide new tools to understand cancer trend data overall and how different intervention strategies influence future trend projections in colorectal cancer mortality.

The CTPR is available online at http://progressreport.cancer.gov/. Questions about the report can be directed to progressreporthelp@mail.nih.gov. The Colorectal Cancer Mortality Projections Web site can be viewed at http://cisnet.cancer.gov/projections/colorectal. Questions about the Web site can be directed to srab@imsweb.com.

Tumor Microenvironment Web Site Launched
NCI recently launched the Tumor Microenvironment Network (TMEN) Web site, which provides information on NCI's initiative to expand understanding of the role of tumor microenvironments in cancer initiation, progression, and metastases. Ten funded programs form TMEN, an infrastructure designed to establish, promote, and facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration and progress in understanding the role of host stroma in the formation of tumors. Information about the initiative, its 10 programs, and related meeting and conference announcements is included on the site.

NCI Cancer Bulletin Wins Award
The NCI Cancer Bulletin recently received a 2007 MarCom Gold Award in the e-newsletter category.

The MarCom Awards is an international creative competition that recognizes outstanding achievement in marketing and communications. It is administered and judged by industry experts from the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals. This year there were more than 5,000 entries from across the nation and several foreign countries.

The MarCom Award marks the second award received by the newsletter this year. In the summer, the Bulletin was recognized with a Gold Hermes Award for Communications.

If Memory Serves...

In the decade after the National Cancer Institute Act was passed in 1937, Public Health Service laws were rewritten to include more authority for research, grants, and training at NIH, as well as a clinical center. (Read more)

For more information about the birth of NCI, go to http://www.cancer.gov/
aboutnci/ncia.

NCI Personnel Changes Announced
Dr. Robert Yarchoan has been named the director for the NCI Office of HIV and AIDS Malignancies, located in the Office of the Director. This office is a trans-NCI effort to coordinate, prioritize, and facilitate the research effort in HIV and AIDS malignancies. In addition to taking on this new leadership responsibility, Dr. Yarchoan continues as chief of the HIV and AIDS Malignancy Branch in the Center for Cancer Research.

In the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, there are four new branch chiefs. In the Behavioral Research Program, Dr. Cathy Backinger has been named chief of the Tobacco Control Research Branch, and Dr. Paige McDonald has been named chief of the Basic and Biobehavioral Research Branch. In the Epidemiology and Genetics Research Program, Dr. Mukesh Verma is the new chief of the Methods and Technologies Branch, and Dr. Britt Reid is the new chief of the Modifiable Risk Factors Branch.