Kevin Howcroft Joins CIHB Branch Kevin Howcroft Joins CIHB Branch
The Cancer Immunology and Hematology Branch welcomes Dr. Kevin Howcroft as Program Director. Dr. Howcroft will take over the grant portfolio of Dr. John Finerty who retired in August. Dr. Howcroft obtained a M.S. in Cell Biology from the University of Cincinnati, and Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Connecticut Health Sciences Center where he studied the role of protein kinase C and Na+/H+ antiport activity in triggering cytotoxic T lymphocyte cytolysis of tumor cells. Dr. Howcroft subsequently joined the Experimental Immunology Branch at the National Cancer Institute and remained there as Staff Scientist in the Molecular Regulation Section. At the NCI, Dr. Howcroft examined the molecular regulation of MHC class I genes and viral repression of MHC class I expression in infected cells as a mechanism to avoid destruction by anti-viral cytotoxic T lymphocytes. If your grant was managed by Dr. Finerty, it's now in the hands of Dr. Howcroft. He can be reached at the general Branch number and his email address is on the last page of the newsletter.
The Division of Cancer Biology (DCB) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) will host its fourth annual New Grantee Workshop later this spring. This one-and-a-half day workshop will be held in Rockville, Maryland on May 18 and 19, 2004. Susan McCarthy, Program Director for Molecular Immunology, is one of the DCB organizers for this workshop.
The DCB New Grantee Workshop is one component of our on-going efforts to aid the careers of promising new cancer researchers. The workshop is designed for our grantees who have received their first independent NIH grant within the last year. We hope to play an active role in helping our grantees make the transition from "new investigator" to "established investigator".
The workshop will include presentations on the structures, roles, and inter-relationships of NIH, NCI, DCB, and the individual programmatic branches within DCB. Another focus will be the NIH peer-review process, with emphasis on issues related to competitive renewal applications, since we want our new grantees to understand what lies ahead for them. A third session will focus on how new grantees can best balance their research efforts with their other professional responsibilities. The workshop will also include break-out sessions with DCB Program Directors, plus plenty of time for new grantees to meet their colleagues and ask questions.