Fellows and Young Investigators Association

Over 350 participants, including post-docs, clinical fellows, grad students, post-bacs, and PIs, defied the late winter weather and attended the 5th annual CCR-FYI retreat on February 28-March 2, 2005, in Wiliamsburg, VA. Dr. Margaret Foti, the director of the American Association of Cancer Research, was one of the prominent keynote speakers at the retreat. In her address, she gave a very nice overview of how far cancer research has advanced. We were also very fortunate to have Dr. Emmanuel Petricoin, Dr. Lee Helman, and Dr. Tom Misteli as distinguished keynote speakers who presented their scientific findings. Dr. Andrew Von Eschenbach and Dr. Robert Wiltrout discussed the status of NCI and CCR and provided the participants an opportunity to ask questions directly to the directors.

The workshops focused on finding a job after NCI and how to make the decision between academia and industry, how to be a good mentor, and how to deal with “real-life” issues such as buying a house and investing. There was an International workshop with a panel of representatives from different Embassies who gave information of how to find jobs outside of the US. Lastly, there was an Ethics-session, which provided an overview of what the ethics rules are, how these rules apply to the post-docs and clinical fellows, and what we should do as fellows to comply to these rules.

Congratulations to all who received awards for their outstanding presentations!