Welcome back from the summer.
The preposterously soggy weather this past week was certainly a reminder that days on the beach are rapidly receding into our memories. It has been a short week, but the big news for me has been the Health Disparities Retreat, which was held on Thursday afternoon, and was chaired by Lucile Adams-Campbell, with facilitation by Carolyn Hurley and Phyllis Magrab.
Judy Wang (from Cancer Control) and Beth Beck (from the Capital Breast Care Center) served as our rapporteurs following our two breakout sessions. It was well attended, and very productive, although there were more clinicians at the retreat from the Washington Hospital Center than from GUH! Also, since this is a cross-cutting initiative, it would have been great to see more of our bench scientists there.
Many thanks to Craig Jordan, Dick Schlegel and Jeff Toretsky for their participation. The retreat focused on two major areas: enhancing minority accruals to therapeutic clinical trials, and enhancing community outreach and community participation to support our research missions. A series of fabulous ideas emerged from these discussions. I am particularly excited about more deeply engaging our colleagues at the Washington Hospital Center to enhance minority accruals to therapeutic clinical trials. There are a number of barriers, some of which are clearly related to challenges faced by patients with multiple comorbidities. However, by working together we can test compelling clinical questions that are relevant to these patient populations using streamlined patient eligibility criteria in in order to enhance accrual, while relying on our population scientists to help study barriers to clinical trial participation. I am committed to making this happen. It is vitally important because it is the right thing to do, and it is what NCI expects us to do as a CCSG-funded cancer center.
But, as important as this is, it is one of many compelling opportunities for us to consider. Thanks are owed to Lucile for making this happen. I urge all interested individuals to contact her to get involved in this important set of initiatives, and to attend future meetings that emerge from the Health Disparities action plan!
I also attended a fabulously interesting Molecular Oncology program meeting this week. The focus was on science, and Todd Waldman gave an exciting presentation centered on his recent paper in Science, describing the role of STAG2 mutations on genome instability in glioblastomas and other cancers. He also showed us a Specific Aims page for a grant he is planning to submit, and he solicited feedback from the group about the general structure of the proposal. This is precisely how program meetings should proceed: excellent science, with an opportunity for lots of informal interactions, and a focus on how to best move the science forward. For example, it turns out that Usha Kasid studies another protein in the same cohesin complex Todd has explored, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this meeting leads to a collaboration. Thanks to Jeff Toretsky for organizing the meeting.
Again, even if you are not a member of the Molecular Oncology program, keep an eye out for future program meeting announcements in Lombardi Next Week and on the Lombardi calendar; they will contain the name(s) of the presenter(s) and the title(s) of their presentation(s). If all of the program meetings (for Molecular Oncology and for the other programs) are as good as this one, our cancer center will certainly become stronger.
I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to remember and celebrate the life and accomplishments of Mark Smulson. He was truly a Georgetown Giant. For many years he was one of the true backbones of Lombardi’s radiation biology research, and he served as a program co-leader (with Tony Dritschilo and then Vicente Notario) for the CCSG-supported program. His science was immense, and his work brought honor to Lombardi and to Georgetown. I am sure you will join me in extending deepest condolences to Mark’s family, and in particular to his son Eric Smulson (ems62@georgetown.edu), who is Georgetown University’s vice president for public affairs and senior advisor to the president of Georgetown.
Have a great weekend.