NCI Staff Recipients of NIH Director's Awards
Several NCI staff were presented with awards at the 2006 NIH Director's Awards ceremony on July 12 in the Natcher Auditorium on the NIH campus. The awards recognized the expert skills and efforts of NIH employees in scientific discovery and management of NIH.

NCI recipients of individual NIH Director's Award included: Kathleen Cronin, Shiv Grewal, Louis Staudt, Joan Warren, and Brigitte Widemann. NCI recipients of group NIH Director's Award included: Michael Arluk, Mary Anne Bright, Nelvis Castro, Mark Clanton, C. Norman Coleman, Candace Deaton, Lakshmi Grama, Lee Helman, Jon Kerner, Madeline La Porta, Steven Libutti, Anne Lubenow, Thomas Misteli, Andre Nussenzweig, Rochelle Rollins, Patricia Schettino, Kathleen Schlom, Debra Steverson, Cynthia Vinson, Linda Weiss, and Robert Zablocki. The NCI recipient of the Mentoring Award was Howard Young, and the recipient of the Public Health Service NIH Commissioned Corps Award was Nathaniel Rothman.

The ceremony can be viewed at http://videocast.nih.gov.

Dr. Robert B. Dickson Dies at 54
Former NCI investigator Dr. Robert B. Dickson died on June 24, in Kensington, Md., at the age of 54. He was considered one of the world's leading researchers in breast cancer.

Dr. Dickson began his career in 1980 in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of NCI's Center for Cancer Research (CCR), where he was the first scientist to discover the link between estrogen and breast cancer tumors. He joined the faculty of Georgetown University in 1988. Dr. Dickson was named the vice chairman of Georgetown's Department of Oncology in 1999. In 2001, he was appointed co-director of the Breast Cancer Program at the university's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Dr. Ira Pastan, chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, CCR, said, "We all know about Bob Dickson's outstanding contributions to breast cancer research. These are in textbooks and will have a lasting impact on the field. What his friends remember is his friendship, his good humor, his good character, and his positive attitude to life."

Dr. Dickson is survived by his parents, wife, and daughter.

NIH Research Festival Call for Posters Deadline Nears
The 2006 NIH Research Festival will be held Oct. 17-20 on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Md. The festival's organizing committee is now accepting online submissions of poster abstracts by all NIH investigators and Bethesda FDA/CBER investigators through August 1. Posters in any area of research conducted within the NIH intramural program will be considered for presentation, but the committee is requesting a limit of one poster submission per first author.

For more information about poster registration, please contact Paula Cohen, research festival logistics coordinator, at 301-496-1776 or cohenp@mail.nih.gov. For a preliminary schedule of events and online poster registration, please visit http://researchfestival.nih.gov.

Cancer Prevention Lecture Is Slated
The 2006 Annual Advances in Cancer Prevention Lecture, "The Promises and Perils of Clinical Chemoprevention: 1980-2030," will be held on July 27 from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. at Lister Hill Auditorium on the NIH campus. A reception will follow.

The lecture, sponsored by NCI's Office of Preventive Oncology, Division of Cancer Prevention, will be given by Dr. Frank L. Meyskens, Jr., director of the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, professor of medicine and biological chemistry, and senior associate dean of Health Sciences at the College of Health Sciences, University of California, Irvine.