Our Scientists @ Work

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  Delving More Than Skin Deep
  There are several schools of thought on cancer. One claims it’s a basic knowledge problem. A lot of things can be done, but we still don’t have a complete understanding of the process. Vincent Hearing, Ph.D., Deputy Chief of CCR’s Laboratory of Cell Biology, belongs to this school. He has spent 42 years at the bench characterizing a single cell type called a melanocyte. For him, this groundwork is necessary in order to target the abnormal melanocytes that often result in the deadly skin cancer—melanoma.

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  Seeing the Unexpected
  Mary Carrington, Ph.D., Senior Investigator in CCR’s Laboratory of Experimental Immunology and Director of the SAIC Basic Science Program at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, has a talent for seeing unexpected molecular interactions, and for interpreting their implications. While studying the genes that code for human leukocyte antigens (HLAs)—the molecules that distinguish “self” vs. “nonself” on human cells, tissues, and organs—and the role they play in a person’s susceptibility to HIV infection, she and her colleagues made a novel discovery.

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  Deconstructing Health Disparities
  Survival rates for African-Americans with cancer are simply not as encouraging as those for other racial groups. Many factors have been examined—differences in socioeconomic status and access to health care, PSA screening, age at diagnosis, and disease stage and grade—to identify reproducible causes for these substantial racial disparities, but so far, no convincing explanation has emerged. Stefan Ambs, Ph.D., M.P.H., a Senior Investigator in CCR’s Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis, who heads the Breast and Prostate Unit, is determined to change this situation.