Greetings on a dreary Sunday afternoon; except for Saturday, we’ve had a lot of rain. To be clear, we don’t have much to complain about, as so many people begin the long and difficult process of recovery from the devastation of Hurricane Helene.
In the non-weather division, we had an exciting week, highlighted by the visit of Dr. Kimryn Rathmell, director of the National Cancer Institute, to Georgetown Lombardi. Dr. Rathmell was initially invited to give a Distinguished Lecture by Moshe Levi, and after she accepted he got the cancer center involved. Originally, we expected her to arrive for a 4 p.m. lecture, followed by a small dinner.
Then, a week before her talk we learned that she planned to arrive at 1 p.m. So we had three hours to fill! On short notice, and with great support from Sharon Levy, Kaitlyn Murphy and Alexus Cole, we came up with an excellent program. It started with a meet and greet with the Lombardi leadership, including a vibrant discussion about catchment areas and the future of NCI consortia. We were fortunate that David Perlin, Andre Goy and Lisa Carter-Bawa were able to come in for the afternoon to demonstrate through their actions the effectiveness of our consortium partnership.
After that meeting, Lucile Adams-Campbell, Chiranjeev Dash and Lisa Carter-Bawa discussed Lombardi’s work in community outreach and engagement and our efforts in minority health disparities research. This is an area of intense interest for Dr. Rathmell, and I am certain that she came away impressed by our work in these spaces.
We then took a walk to the Lombardi Clinic and met with John Marshall, Claudine Isaacs, Lisa Boyle (president of MGUH), Marcus Noel, Keith Unger, Mary Chris Ponder and Julia Langley to discuss clinical care and clinical research at Georgetown Lombardi. After that, we returned to Warwick Evans so that Dr. Rathmell could meet with Becca Riggins and Kristi Graves, along with a group of our students. This was a wonderful session, marked by Dr. Rathmell’s intense interest in how we are nurturing the next generation of cancer researchers.
Moshe Levi then met with Dr. Rathmell and escorted her to the New Research Auditorium for her lecture to a fully packed audience (thanks to everyone who showed up, including Dr. Beauchamp!) that focused on both her career journey and her science. This was followed by a lovely reception on the Podium level and then dinner.
It was a great afternoon and evening. I believe that we were our best selves that day, and can be justifiably proud of our accomplishments, impact and plans. Dr. Rathmell aims to be a change agent, and she understands the cancer centers and how we can be empowered to have even greater impact. She makes me hopeful for the future.
She is going to do her part, so it’s up to us to do our parts too! As a next step, please make the world a better place this week. For those of us who celebrate Rosh Hashanah, I want to wish you a sweet and happy New Year!
Lou
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