CCR SSSC Organization

6th Annual SS/SC Retreat, Natcher Auditorium, Bethesda April 30th, 2010

Summary by Zack Howard (SS) and Ofelia Olivero (AS), The Dossier, July 2010

The 2010 Staff Scientist and Staff Clinician (SS/SC) Retreat Thank you Elaine Hurt and Jianbo Chen for organizing the Sixth Annual NCI CCR SS/SC Retreat. This year, the DCEG SS/SCs joined the retreat, making this a groundbreaking event. Dr. Niederhuber, who addressed the importance of SS/SCs to the mission of the NCI, successfully started the morning with welcoming remarks.  The keynote speaker, Dr. Craig Thompson, Director of the Abramson Cancer, University of Pennsylvania, proved to be the highlight of the meeting when he delivered an inspiring review of the current state of metabolic signaling as it applies to tumor growth and metastasis. The excitement generated by Dr. Thompson’s presentation carried the group to the breakout sessions. This year the NCI Office of Workforce Development facilitated the ability of our organization to meet our goal of providing professional growth by leading two workshops (1) conflict resolution and (2) emotional intelligence. The immediate feed back from the participants carried over into lunch in the Natcher cafeteria and indicated that not only did we as a group learn new approaches to sometimes chronic work related problems but as individuals these classes gave us ways to improve our relationships with family.

Our busy afternoon started with the Clinician’s Address, which was given this year by Dr. Sharon Savage, a tenure track investigator from DCEG. Dr. Savage provided a glimpse of which cancer types are associated with shortened telomere length and how short telomeres contribute to the clinical manifestations of a bone marrow failure syndrome, dyskeratosis congenita. Christophe Marchand’s presentation on the current activities of the Professional Development Committee provided a great transition to this year’s
panel discussion given by Dr. Michelle Bennett, deputy director of the NCI, Dr. Mike Difilippantonio, program manager for therapeutic and diagnostic initiatives, DCTD and Dr. Chameli Jhappan, program director for tumor biology and metastasis branch in the NCI Division of Cancer Biology. This year the discussion focused on transitioning from the intramural to extramural programs at the NCI. In response to the question “How do we gain a better understanding of current and future directions for the NCI?” Dr. Bennett suggested reviewing the board of scientific advisors meetings. The links are available in the NCI Event-Cal electronically published to your desktop bi-monthly. Following the panel discussion, the NIH Director’s Innovation Award winners presented their research. Dr. Olga Sedelnikova provided a retrospective view of her group’s studies into oxidative DNA damage induced by tumors in distal tissues. Dr. Xin Chen reported on the background of TNF receptor 2 in the expansion of regulatory T-cells, which led his group to propose that blockade of TNFR2 could be a relevant anti-cancer therapy.  The 6th annual retreat concluded with Dr. Jonathan Wiest’s announcement of the winners of the 2010 SS/SC travel awards. 

Travel Award Winners:

Dr. Atsushi Terunuma - Outstanding Clinical/Translational Research
Dr. Stephanie Weinstein - Merit Clinical/Translational Research
Dr. Xiaolan Qian -Outstanding Basic Science Research
Dr. Yanlin Yu -Merit Basic Science Research