Director's Notes Archive

• 11/02/2009 - Speeding Treatments to Patients - The Community's Role
  The NCI has been working to engage our Director's Consumer Liaison Group, the DCLG, in reaching the cancer advocacy community and the American public with information about the Institute's research priorities, opportunities, and successes. Last week at the DCLG meeting, centered on NCI's efforts to develop a series of initiatives to speed new treatments to patients, I spoke to the DCLG members about the necessity of developing a new, comprehensive national research cohort of cancer patients - based on the collection of data and tissue from every new cancer patient.
• 10/16/2009 - Mary Lasker: A Matchmaker Between Science and Society
  Mary Lasker (1900 - 1994), an artist by training, was a powerful pioneer in advocating for cancer research funding. I discussed Mrs. Lasker's accomplishments in the spring of this year in testimony before a Senate appropriations committee, where I indicated that many NIH institutes owe her a great debt for her sustained support for increasing budgets for biomedical research.
• 09/22/2009 - Data to Harness Knowledge for Patients
  Two important meetings last week reinforced the necessity that NCI commit to help build a national, patient-centric data resource.
• 09/04/2009 - New NCI Community Outreach Network
  I have asked Dr. Sanya Springfield, Director of NCI's Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities (CRCHD) to write this Director's Note about the new National Outreach Network. In addition, I'd like to clear up some confusion about the NCI Cancer Information Service (CIS) and NCI's community outreach activities.
• 07/08/2009 - Recovery Act Funding Plans
  The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) is, first and foremost, about jobs: creating and preserving employment. It is also about forging new scientific opportunity. For those reasons, NCI's initial push has been to fund additional grants already in the 2009 pipeline, made possible by increasing the grant payline. We also emphasized training support, particularly for summer students, this year.
• 06/26/2009 - NCI Community Cancer Centers Program
  Earlier this month leaders of the hospitals participating in the NCI Community Cancer Centers Program came together for their third annual meeting, an event that has rapidly become a highlight of my calendar. Just two years ago, this group gathered to launch the NCCCP, in a meeting that was infused with energy and the pilot sites' commitment to finding the best ways to make a difference, to deliver state-of-the-art, multispecialty care and our latest science to cancer patients in the communities where they live.
• 06/17/2009 - NCI's Global Cancer Work
  At a meeting of NIH institute and center directors last week, Dr. Roger Glass, director of the Fogarty International Center, discussed the NIH's role in global health. In particular, he focused on recent recommendations that examined innovative international programs across NIH, identified challenges, and developed a series of recommendations, including the formation of an NIH international research working group, intended to enhance and further those efforts.
• 06/04/2009 - Prioritizing Cancer Research
  Two recent meetings highlighted some of the growing challenges NCI faces in coordinating and leading the complex landscape of cancer research within the biomedical research community.
• 05/21/2009 - Specialized Programs of Research Excellence - SPOREs
  The ultimate goal of all laboratory research against cancer is much greater than scientific discovery. Our studies truly make a lasting difference when they are translated from a scientific advance into a treatment, a method of detection, or a better way of preventing cancer—a solution that enhances and extends the lives of cancer patients. Indeed, one of our great challenges as we orient the NCI for future success is speeding the process of translation: getting promising new ideas into the clinic faster, more efficiently, and with less cost.
• 05/13/2009 - President Obama's 2010 Budget
  Last week, both the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services discussed the President's budget request for the 2010 fiscal year. It was, to be sure, a closely watched moment, as the Obama Administration spelled out fiscal details of its agenda for the United States.
• 04/03/2009 - The Most Promising Opportunity
  Last week I had the pleasure of addressing the NCI Director's Consumer Liaison Group, informally known as the DCLG. The DCLG held its spring meeting in Austin, Texas, where they hosted a forum to explore community priorities. The members also discussed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) and the opportunities for progress it presents.
• 03/19/2009 - NCI Funding For Individual Scientists
  In the cancer research community, one of the most tangible signs of NCI's commitment to outstanding science is our vigorous support of individual scientists. While NCI uses many different mechanisms to fund laboratory and translational science, the Research Project Grant, better known as the R01, makes up the largest single segment of NCI's budget.
• 03/13/2009 - Managing the National Cancer Institute
  In any fiscal climate, managing NCI's portfolio is a complex proposition. Consider, if you will, that in a typical year, NCI's Office of Grants Administration will handle almost 12,000 transactions from more than 740 organizations - grants that range from $1,000 to $30 million per year, across 57 funding mechanisms, totaling $3.2 billion.