Category: Research

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CCSG Research

Out the Door

The completed CCSG renewal application (1243 pages of pure poetry) goes to the printer in less than 2 hours. What else is there to say?

It has been quite an experience and I am delighted to have shared it with so many of you over the past year. Unbelievably I managed to do some work on behalf of the cancer center in the midst of the surprisingly serene final days of sending out the grant.

On Monday morning I welcomed a remarkable group of investigators who attended a childhood cancer workshop host by Subha Madhavan. The workshop aimed to design a data portal to study pediatric malignancies. While I wasn’t able to attend all of it, great ideas were flying around the Warwick Evans conference room while I was there.

On Tuesday I paid a quick visit to the American Legacy Foundation open house to congratulate Dave Abrams on his accomplishments in establishing and staffing the Schroader Institute. I really look forward to seeing the Shroeder Institute and Lombardi work together to study and influence tobacco use.

Now that the core grant is (almost) out the door, I can turn my attention to finishing two RC2 grants, doing a couple of grant reviews for an upcoming P01 study section, and wrapping up the GUMC systems medicine design team deliberations in advance of an upcoming retreat. After wrestling the core grant into submission, everything else seems a bit easier in comparison.

Have a great Memorial Day holiday.

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Research

Welcoming a new member of the National Academy of Sciences

I was extraordinarily pleased to learn that our incoming Scientific Director, V. Craig Jordan, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences on Tuesday. As further proof that timing is everything, Craig was previously scheduled to deliver Grand Rounds this Friday at noon in the Research Auditorium. I hope everyone will want to hear his talk, and to meet him and congratulate him on this recognition of his outstanding accomplishments at a brief reception that will follow in the podium Lobby of the Research Building.

Speaking of presentations, I enjoyed Insoo Bae’s talk today at the Wednesday Research Seminar. However, I felt badly that Insoo spoke before such a sparse audience. Like all our speakers, he worked hard to prepare his seminar, and he deserved more support from his colleagues in the cancer center. Let me reiterate my commitment to this series and my expectation that it is a priority on everyone’s weekly schedules.

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Research

Greetings from Denver

Greetings from Denver where I am attending the annual AACR meeting. This is always busy – as I try to absorb as much new information as possible in between various organization-related meetings.

I was pleased that Lombardi’s profile was reflected by the publication of 25 abstracts. Many of you will remember that when I first arrived at Lombardi, I underscored my belief, which is still firmly held, that for Lombardi to be appreciated for its excellence, we have to share our work at major meetings like AACR and ASCO. While 25 abstracts makes a nice showing, let’s not forget that we have 106 full members, an additional 60 associate members, and many trainees. The AACR provides an excellent venue to share the exciting research we have going on here.

I’d like to congratulate two members of our community who received the recognition of “highly-rated abstract” for their research posters at AACR: Zhangzhi Hu, PhD, and Ramona Dumitrescu, PhD. You can view all of the coverage of Lombardi’s activities at AACR on the Lombardi Spotlight, including the opening ceremony video which featured three of our scientists, and a press conference moderated by Peter Shields.

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Research

The Schroeder/Lombardi Cancer Control Consortium

When I first though of taking the position as Director of Lombardi, I was struck by the remarkably wide range of opportunities for Lombardi to connect with research enterprises within the Washington, DC area. Many of these enterprises are truly world class and it is important for Lombardi to take advantage of these opportunities.

The American Legacy Foundation and its Schroeder Institute represent one remarkable opportunity in that regard. The Legacy Foundation was formed as a result of the tobacco settlement and has played a major role in educating the public about the risks of tobacco smoking and nicotine addiction. The Schroeder Institute has become a remarkably impactful research enterprise at the Legacy Foundation. Led by Dave Abrams, a well-known tobacco control expert, the Schroeder Institute has a range of tobacco control research activities that fit extraordinarily well with Lombardi’s focus in both the Cancer Control and Carcinogenesis, Biomarkers, and Epidemiology programs.

This is a truly complementary collaboration in that the Schroeder Institute will provide Lombardi with the opportunities to expand more actively into prevention and other interventional studies, while Lombardi provides the Schroeder Institute with a clinical outlet for its efforts. I expect in the years to follow that many additional points of research collaboration will evolve.

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Research

Lombardi Welcomes Craig Jordan as Scientific Director

V. Craig Jordan, OBE, PhD, DSc
V. Craig Jordan, OBE, PhD, DSc

By now you’ll have seen the announcement that Craig Jordan will be joining us effective this July. I’m delighted to welcome him to Lombardi. He’s an old friend and colleague and I have witnessed firsthand his remarkable capacity to pull together diverse investigators in shared research enterprises. As Scientific Director, Craig will take a leading role in helping me to shape the research portfolio of the Cancer Center. He will be part of my senior operational leadership team, which will consist of Peter Shields in his role as Deputy Director, Michael Vander Hoek as Administrative Director, Craig as Scientific Director, and John Marshall as Clinical Director.

One of Craig’s most important tasks will be to identify opportunities for multi-investigator research programs and to help those programs coalesce and develop so they can be supported by traditional multi-investigator mechanisms such as P01s and SPOREs. I know that he is very excited about putting together a breast cancer SPORE effort working with our outstanding breast cancer investigators at Lombardi.

I was pleased when Claudine Isaacs and Bob Clarke initially approached me about trying to recruit Craig to Lombardi to take on a senior leadership role. They recognized his excellent fit with the breast cancer program at Lombardi. In his new role, Craig will have no specific programmatic leadership responsibilities, although his presence will certainly strengthen our breast cancer efforts here.

Craig will also have an important role in supporting fund raising efforts. His energy, charm, and wide experience will certainly prove to be great assets to Lombardi in that regard.

He will be visiting Lombardi to give a Visiting Professor Seminar in May. This will be a great opportunity for those of who you have not met him to learn more about his science. In the coming months there will be many additional opportunities for you to meet with Craig and learn more about his vision for his role as Scientific Director here at Lombardi.

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Education Outreach Research

Mentoring our junior faculty

We had Program Leader and Associate Director meetings in the past week. After obsessing for the requisite period of time about the core grant submission, we discussed ways to improve program-based mentoring for junior investigators. The goal of these discussions was to find ways to provide support to junior faculty and ensure all of their research ideas are given the advantage of review with a view to identifying more avenues for collaboration and refinement of research strategies.

While we are still working out the details of how this will be implemented, each set of Program Leaders has been encouraged to incorporate research proposal reviews into their regular program meeting structures. Of course, more senior investigators who are looking either for validation or a reality check will be encouraged to take advantage of this new interactive resource as well. Stay tuned for more on these efforts.

One of the highlights of last week was a visit I paid to the Walter Reed Hospital where I met with Colonel Craig Shriver, Director of the Clinical Breast Care Project. He has organized a remarkably comprehensive breast cancer tumor enterprise. There are many opportunities for potential collaborations and Col. Shriver will be leading a delegation that will visit Lombardi in May. I also had a chance to visit John Potter while at Walter Reed. His office is in the original main building, which has enough photographs and paintings to qualify as a major museum in many cities. It’s quite striking.

On Sunday, Harriet hosted many members of the Lombardi/CBCC Avon Walk team at our house. After they met and strategized about ways to raise more money for the team, I had the wonderful opportunity to clean up while the team went out for a soggy and chilly walk. I think I got the better end of the deal.

Monday morning I visited the CBCC and met with Beth Beck and her crew to learn more about the work they do and their future plans. It is a really wonderful facility and provides such an important service to underserved women in the District and in our region. I was excited to learn that a van will shortly be in operation to pick up patients from the community to be transported to the Center for both mammography and patient education. I’m proud that Lombardi has been the driving force behind this wonderful enterprise.

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Events Research

Stimulating discussions – and the stimulus package

It was a great pleasure for me to see Stan Gerson when he came to Lombardi to deliver Grand Rounds last Friday. Not only is he an old friend and study section colleague, but he’s also a valued member of our External Scientific Advisory Committee (ESAC). As a cancer center director, his perspective and insight is very valuable to me as we head into the CCSG renewal. Even though Stan usually slept during sections on tumor immunology, I forgive him his transgressions and found his presentation on Friday to be interesting and provocative. I was, however, disappointed to be one of only a handful of clinicians in the audience. I don’t see how we could have better speakers at Grand Rounds, so hopefully this will change. Everyone is busy, but the opportunity to participate in exciting academic activities is and will remain a core value of this cancer center.

Harriet and I attended the Pediatrics Gala at the Omni Shoreham Saturday night. It reminded me that Jeff Toretsky and Aziza Shad are hosting a very significant symposium on Targeted Therapy for Childhood Cancers that will feature a great lineup of speakers. It will be held on Friday, April 17 in the Research Building Auditorium. Please remember to put it on your calendar and register for the event.

On Monday we had our first full senior operational team meeting where we welcomed John Marshall into the group. The senior operational leadership team now consists of Peter Shields, Michael Vander Hoek, John Marshall, and myself. I think it’s important to include a strong clinical perspective in these weekly operations meetings, and John’s input proved invaluable to the discussions.

I have also had several meetings related to fund raising in the past week. Aside from my routinely scheduled meeting with Joe Teague, I also met with the University Office of Advancement’s “Discovery Intiative” team, which consists of roughly 20 individuals who interface with Georgetown alumni, friends, and supporters. I was able to share our vision for the future and can assure you that vision was enthusiastically received. Since these people engage their constituents looking for opportunities to create relationships that can benefit the cancer center, I came away quite encouraged.

Finally, you have no doubt been bombarded by a variety of messages regarding stimulus package grant opportunities. We are doing our best to coordinate our activities and provide support to facilitate successful applications. The large construction grants will be handled centrally through the University, but many of the other proposals, including grant supplements, should be considered by all of us. If you have not already done so, please let us know your plans for submitting grants using this form.

Have a great week.

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Events Research

I spoke too soon

So it was 13 degrees outside when I left for work yesterday morning. It’s so much fun to live in “semi-tropical” Washington.

Despite the climate, I did have a scientifically interesting week. As I mentioned in my last post, Khaled El-Shami, Carolyn Hurley, and I met last Thursday with investigators from the NCI bone marrow transplant (BMT) program to discuss a really exciting protocol involving the infusion of allogeneic natural killer cells in patients with refractory myeloid malignancies. Key to the protocol will be the prospective haplotyping of natural killer cells by Carolyn; this will help select patients with appropriate mismatches that can drive natural killer cell recognition and attack against myeloid leukemia cells. The protocol is undergoing refinement as a result of our discussions and I’m hopeful to get it started in the very near future.

On Tuesday afternoon I had the pleasure of participating in the annual Spring Convocation in Gaston Hall, and was proud to have the opportunity to congratulate Bob Clarke and Mary Beth Martin for receiving vicentennial medals for 20 years of service to Georgetown. Joseph Neale, professor of biology, gave a thoroughly entertaining review of his life at Georgetown. Following the Convocation, the 1789 Society dinner was held in Riggs Library, celebrating the University’s most generous supporters. It’s reassuring to know that even during these difficult economic times that our core philanthropic support remains strong.

Last night, Harriet and I attended the Friends of Cancer Research annual awards banquet at the Hotel Monaco. It was great to see Ryan Hohman, who now works for Friends of Cancer Research, and we spent the evening with Peter Shields and his wife Leslie. Ellen Sigel, who heads Friends of Cancer Research, is a genuine force in the cancer advocacy world and has focused effectively on legislative remedies including advocacy of the Kennedy-Hutchison bill. Our location in DC and our identity as part of Georgetown University give us many opportunities to be a part of the action and to hopefully play a role in defining our nation’s agenda with respect to cancer research.

Finally, if anyone missed the Town Hall meeting yesterday, I have posted the slides online. I also recommend that everyone peruse the slides from Howard Federoff’s meeting about the stimulus bill.

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CCSG Events Research

Getting ready for spring

I don’t know about you, but knowing that Spring Training has started gives me some hope that Winter is finally winding down! It will feel good to walk around without needing a coat.

As always, this is a very busy time of the year. Last week, John Marshall and I had a very interesting conference call regarding a new vaccine that could be used in pancreatic cancer patients. This week, Khaled El Shami, Carolyn Hurley, and I are meeting with the NCI bone marrow transplant program people to further develop an exciting allogeneic natural killer cell infusion protocol for refractory myeloid leukemia patients. This collaboration truly represents an integrated clinical and laboratory research initiative with our NCI colleagues.

And, on Wednesday, Anton Wellstein showed me some really interesting data from the new Translational Laboratory headed by Narayan Shivapurkar, who joined us in January from the University of Texas, Southwestern, where he worked with John Minna. This laboratory plans to use multiplexed protein and phosphoprotein detection assays on a novel instrument, the Meso Scale Discovery Platform, and the data thus far indicate that a sensitive and fairly comprehensive analysis of key protein phosphorylation events can be monitored using small tissue samples. This tool should greatly expand our capacity to conduct correlative science in the context of clinical trials; if you have any questions, check with Anton or Narayan. Narayan is also developing microRNA expression assays; the very early returns are encouraging. Once the assays have been successfully developed, they too can serve to extend our clinical trial support repertoire. Needless to say, both the phosphorylation and microRNA technologies will prove to be valuable for all types of science that is done at Lombardi.

I’ve also had some interesting meetings in the last week. For example, I participated in a conference call with our Population Science focused External Scientific Advisory Committee (ESAC) on Monday, and received helpful suggestions and very positive feedback as we head into the homestretch for our CCSG submission. I’ll have more information about this at Wednesday’s Town Hall Meeting.

On that note, have a great rest of the week and please make sure to join us at the Lombardi Town Hall Meeting on Wednesday, March 4th.

Categories
CCSG Research

Report from our External Scientific Advisory Committee

It’s been a busy past few weeks. Last Tuesday, as many of you know, our External Scientific Advisory Committee (ESAC) visited and conducted a remarkably thorough and helpful review of the cancer center. My thanks go out to everyone who prepared so hard to make this a successful and productive exercise. We received generally positive feedback along with specific suggestions that will improve the clarity of our upcoming core grant submission. Several of the ESAC members joined a few of us at the Rutgers game and got to see the only game that Georgetown has won in recent memory. We must bring the ESAC back soon!

I also had the pleasant opportunity to meet with the Lombardi Gala Corporate Committee to continue our planning for this year’s Gala. I’m really excited about resuming this wonderful tradition after a one year hiatus.

This week was highlighted by the University Board of Director’s meeting. As always, I was pleased to note the incredibly thoughtful and wise perspective of our board. I really mean that! And I’m very happy to have their unwavering support for the Lombardi and its mission.

Yesterday’s activities were enlivened by a trip to the NIH campus where Minetta Liu and I met with Jay Berzofsky and his colleagues to discuss collaboration around a novel vaccine concept for the treatment of HER2 positive breast cancer. I think we’ll have a lot of fun working with Jay and his colleagues, and we’ll be able to offer our patients cutting-edge options as well. The visit exemplified for me the potential for reaching out to local governmental and non-governmental entities to collaborate in areas of high scientific importance. As they say in real estate – location, location, location!

Now it’s time to get back to writing my section of the core grant renewal. Talk to you next week.

Update: Be sure to check out the comments we received on the logos. Thank you for your very thoughtful responses. We are taking all of the feedback into consideration as we move forward in collaboration with the University on our branding initiative.