NCI Listens and Learns NCI's State Cancer Legislative Database (SCLD) is a public database of cancer-related legislation from all states. NCI would like feedback from the advocacy community and members of the public on the SCLD. How would the information provided by the SCLD Web site be useful for your advocacy group (such as the Data Tables, Fact Sheets, Newsletters, Presentations, and Snapshots contained in the SCLD Products page)? Do you have any suggestions for products and/or services that you would like to see the SCLD program provide in the future? Additionally, the Director's Consumer Liaison Group (DCLG) is requesting public input regarding their upcoming meeting on October 25. Which NCI activities or programs are important for the DCLG and the cancer advocacy community to hear about during upcoming DCLG meetings? Please provide public comments to be addressed during the October 25, 2006 meeting. Please note that these comments will be included as part of the public record for this meeting. To register and post comments for the SCLD and/or the DCLG, go to http://ncilistens.cancer.gov.

NCI Requests Advice on Agents with Potential for Immunotherapy
Immunological research has discovered many agents with the potential to serve as immunotherapeutic drugs. NCI is working to develop a prioritized list of agents with substantial potential for cancer immunotherapy and is requesting suggestions for agents that might be used in clinical trials alone or in combination with other drugs. Investigators wishing to provide suggestions are encouraged to go to https://webapps4.nci.nih.gov/immuno/SubmissionForm.do to submit agents for consideration.

NIH Research Festival Set for October
This year's NIH Research Festival, "Bench to Beside," will take place October 17-20 in the Natcher Conference Center and the NIH Clinical Center on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Md. For information about the schedule of presentations, job fairs, activities, and other events, go to http://researchfestival.nih.gov/.

NCI Awards Grants to Five Clinical Proteomic Technology Teams
On September 27, NCI announced funding for a major component of its 5-year Clinical Proteomic Technologies Initiative for Cancer (CPTI). Awards totaling $35.5 million over 5 years will establish a collaborative network of five Clinical Proteomic Technology Assessment for Cancer (CPTAC) teams. Each of the teams has expertise in evaluating the measurement technologies for proteins and peptides relevant to clinical cancer research and practice.

The CPTAC awardees are the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Dr. Steven A. Carr, principal investigator (PI); the University of California, San Francisco/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Dr. Susan Fisher, PI; Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Dr. Daniel Liebler, PI; Purdue University, Dr. Fred Regnier, PI; and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Dr. Paul Tempst, PI.

The CPTAC teams will focus on the cross-laboratory comparison and validation of technology platforms used for proteomics measurements as well as bioinformatics software and protocols to establish a basis for intra-laboratory comparison and reproducibility of proteomic data. The output of this consortia of teams will be available through public databases supported by the cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid.

"This program is a critical component of NCI's strategy for leveraging the diagnostic and therapeutic potential of proteomics for cancer patients," said NCI Deputy Director Dr. Anna Barker. "The complementary expertise of the awardees and their commitment to collaboration and real-time data sharing will contribute to a new generation of biomarker-based interventions to diagnose, treat, and prevent cancer."