I hope everyone is enjoying this amazing fall-like weather!
This past week marked a personal milestone for me—I became a grandfather for the first time! My grandson, Isaac Solomon Fertig, was born on Saturday, September 11, weighing in at 6 pounds, 13 ounces. Isaac, our daughter Elana and her husband Ben are doing great. As is the right of any self-respecting new grandfather, I have attached a few pictures.
In other good news, we received the official notice this week that our Comprehensive Cancer Center status has been renewed through the next CCSG term. While this was not a surprise, it is an affirmative reminder of the caliber of the work we do here, and of the company we keep. Sometimes those facts get lost in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. There is much to be proud of at Lombardi.
We kicked off our response to the NCI’s CCSG critique this week with a vibrant planning meeting of our program directors. The objective was to have participants present their ideas on how we can improve upon our program structure to best organize our science. For the purposes of this discussion, basically nothing was off the table. We discussed ways we could combine or realign our existing programs in ways that specifically and strategically address the CCSG critiques, promote collaboration and showcase our unique strengths. This meeting was highly productive and many excellent ideas were proposed and debated. I plan to select a candidate program structure by the end of the month, and will discuss it at the upcoming Town Hall on September 28 at noon. This structure will be fleshed out to include major themes and suggested allocations of program members and then presented to a group of by external advisors that includes our ESAC. Once we have agreed upon the changes that will be made we will present the modified structure to the NCI Cancer Center Program for review and comment.
Have a great weekend!
