On Monday, Feb. 2, National Cancer Institute director Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach will launch a new lecture series at NIH, the NCI Director's Seminar Series, as he introduces the first of three speakers scheduled for 2004. The series is designed to bring national leaders to NIH to discuss extraordinary advances in their fields as NCI works toward helping to eliminate the suffering and death due to cancer by the year 2015.

Dr. Mark McClellan, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, will kick off the series with remarks from 9 to 10 a.m. in Masur Auditorium, Bldg. 10. In a lecture titled, "Confronting Cancer through Collaboration and e-Health Technologies," he will discuss the latest innovations in biomedical and cancer research. He will also share insights into the promise of electronic medical information, FDA's recent collaboration with NCI, and the agency's broad initiative to speed the development of new drugs and therapeutics.

Dr. Mark McClellan McClellan has a distinguished background in academia, medicine and public service. With an M.D. from the Harvard-MIT division of health sciences and technology and a Ph.D. in economics from MIT, he has taught both economics and medicine at Stanford University, was director of Stanford's program on health outcomes research and practiced internal medicine. He served in the White House during 2001-2002 as a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisors and as senior policy director for health care and related economic issues. He has served as a member of the National Cancer Policy Board of the National Academy of Sciences, as associate editor of the Journal of Health Economics, and as co-principal investigator of the Health and Retirement Study.

McClellan's research has addressed such issues as measuring and improving the quality of health care, identifying economic and policy factors that influence medical treatment decisions and health outcomes, estimating the effects of medical treatments, examining technological change in health care and its consequences for health and medical expenditures, and understanding the relationship between health and economic well-being.

"Meeting the goal of eliminating the suffering and death due to cancer by 2015 requires a concerted effort by the entire cancer community," said von Eschenbach, explaining the series' rationale. "NCI is working in collaboration with other institutes and centers of NIH, other federal agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public and private ventures in the community to achieve this goal."

The NCI Director's Seminar Series provides a forum for such collaborators to share advances in their area of expertise and allow others the opportunity to build on their knowledge. "If these collaborations are successful, the progress of cancer research will accelerate and pay considerable dividends for all members of our community," noted von Eschenbach. "And, most importantly, these initiatives will directly benefit cancer patients and members of the public — in the near-term and even more dramatically as we get closer to 2015."

Future lecturers in the series include the president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), Carl Feldbaum, speaking on Mar. 19 at 2 p.m., and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Julie Gerberding, speaking at 1 p.m. on Sept. 16. Both lectures will take place in Masur Auditorium.

The Feb. 2 lecture will be webcast at http://videocast.nih.gov. Sign language interpretation will be provided. For more information, or for reasonable accommodation, contact Kate Haessler at (301) 348-1662 or the Federal Relay at 1-800-877-8339. More information about the NCI Director's Seminar Series can be found at http://cancer.gov/directorscorner.