The summer is flying by, even though it has not cooled off very much. Speaking of things flying by; I got back my car on Friday, following a nearly three-week stay at an auto collision shop to recover from the destructive effects of a thunderstorm-driven dead branch in Parking Lot E. All is well that ends well, but the collision shop owners must be the happiest folks in Virginia. Things certainly worked out well for them!
This past week was punctuated by CCSG-related meetings, and a very productive meeting with Andrew Pecora from Hackensack University Medical Center to discuss our evolving collaboration, with an initial emphasis on bone marrow transplantation.
My Wednesday morning was highlighted by a photo op in the clinic with John Deeken and Brandon Smaglo, one of our fellows. The GUMC website will be highlighting Brandon’s recent participation in the ASCO/AACR Clinical Methods Workshop in Vail, CO last month. Brandon has written a clinical trial combining an ABL inhibitor with cetuximab, an EGFR inhibitor, based on work done by John Deeken and by my lab as well. The workshop is the world’s best opportunity for promising trainees or junior faculty members to gain experience in clinical trials methodology. It is intensely competitive, and Brandon wrote a compelling application, and certainly made the best possible use of the experience. I spent 10 years as a faculty member, and three of them as one of the course directors. While I don’t miss the hardest working week of the year, I do miss the inspiring interactions afforded by the opportunity. I never failed to learn something new and important from every lecture, workshop and group session in which I participated. Brandon will not only benefit from having had to assimilate an astonishing amount of new information delivered through the firehose that is Vail, but he will have a new sense of what is possible in his life, and has met over 100 new colleagues whose paths will cross his for the rest of his career. How cool is that?
I spent all day Thursday up at the NCI performing a portfolio review of the NCI drug discovery and drug development programs as a member of the NExT panel. I am happy to report that I had to recuse myself from two discussions because they involved Lombardi members. It’s nice to know that we are very much in the mix in this important area.
And, on Friday, Harriet and I drove up to Philadelphia in a driving rainstorm (think “monsoon”) to attend the White Coat ceremony of our daughter-in-law, Sarah, who is married to our oldest child, Ken. Sarah starts her first year of medical school at Drexel University College of Medicine on Monday; it was wonderful to celebrate this accomplishment with her and to wish her well on her journey. We celebrated that evening at a terrific Indian Restaurant (Tashan) in South Philadelphia that reminded us of Rasika here in DC. After breakfast on Saturday we headed back down I-95 to prepare for our last party (held Sunday evening) to welcome Mike Atkins and his wife, Susan Crockin, to Lombardi. Mike has already very much become a member of the Lombardi family, but who can argue with having a party?