Epidemiology: The Secret Life of Hospital Bugs Immunology: Chemical Switch Shown to Have Early Effect on Immune Response Collaboration: Cancer Center Holds Site Visit, Awaits NCI Review Obstetrics and Gynecology: Clinic Serves Needs of Immigrant Women Who Have Undergone Circumcision Genetics: Liver Cirrhosis in Mice Inhibited by Telomerase Gene Therapy Gene Found Essential for Cell Polarity, Organization Steroid Abuse, Eating Disorders Common in Women Bodybuilders Dose of Antibodies May Prevent HIV Transmission from Mother to Child Bird Brain Yields Bright Idea on Brain Repair Forum Explores Race Disparities in AIDS Prevention Bloom Names New Deans at HSPH In Memoriam: Janice Pfeffer George Starkey Honors and Advances Why Science Can't Afford to Be Sacred Front Page

COLLABORATION Cancer Center Holds Site Visit, Awaits NCI Review The new Dana–Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC) passed its first major hurdle this month with the completion of a site visit to evaluate the center for a National Cancer Institute grant. Official results of the Feb. 7 to 9 visit will not be known for a couple of months, but the center's leaders say the event went as planned. The site visit team included 24 cancer researchers from around the country and five NCI staff members. They will submit their report to the NCI's Cancer Center Support Review Committee, which is expected to assign a priority score for the center in April. The Center as Hub The Dana–Farber Cancer Institute has been an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center for 26 years. The expansion of the center into a first-of-its-kind consortium linking DFCI with six other Harvard-affiliated institutions—Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Children's Hospital, the Harvard School of Public Health, Massachusetts General Hospital, and HMS—was formally announced in December 1999. The cancer center support grant from the NCI would provide partial funding for the entire DF/HCC. The center has requested $10.3 million a year for five years, but the priority score will influence the actual funding level. The DF/HCC is designed to strengthen basic, clinical, and population science research by allowing the center's 800 or so members to share resources and coordinate efforts in a more focused and efficient manner. The center has 15 disease- and discipline-based programs, including viral oncology, cancer cell biology, outcomes research, breast cancer, and leukemia. In addition, several core facilities have been established or enhanced to provide specialized services to researchers. Among the additions are facilities for high-throughput DNA sequencing, cytogenetics, measurement, and mouse specialized services. Supporting the collaboration is a Web-based intranet allowing members to access information about the center, its core facilities, and each other, as well as to exchange findings and discuss each other's work in a secure way. First Impressions David Nathan, director of the DF/HCC and president of Dana–Farber, told staff that "the site visitors were deeply impressed by the crispness of our presentations, the clarity of our vision, and the cohesion of our faculty and staff. They could see that we have pulled together a brilliant team that will truly move the field." Peter Howley, head of the HMS Department of Pathology and associate director for basic science at DF/HCC, adds that "the site visit was a great success. The presentations of the individual programs and cores were well received by the visiting team. It was clear that we had succeeded in pulling together as a community to form a new cancer center composed of Harvard-affiliated institutions." In the weeks leading up to the site visit, the center's leaders gathered to rehearse their presentations and offer critiques to their colleagues. "It's been an amazing process," reports Andrea Talis, the center's deputy associate director for program coordination. "During these meetings, the scientists gave presentations about what is going on in their programs or core facilities, and [their colleagues] asked lots of tough questions." The core facility directors took the unusual step of presenting the core facilities by a poster session. Business manager Chris Clement says that "the posters allowed reviewers to spend as much time as they needed to learn about the cores and talk with the core directors." The posters will be on display at each DF/HCC institution in the coming weeks, and core directors will have an opportunity to answer questions about the facilities. Nathan reports that the posters may soon be used to show other cancer centers how such facilities may be presented. The chief of the NCI Cancer Centers Branch suggested the posters be brought to the Cancer Center Administrators' April meeting in San Francisco to demonstrate how the DF/HCC poster session was organized. Faye Austin, Dana–Farber's director for research and associate director for administration of the DF/HCC, who formerly served as director of NCI's Division of Cancer Biology, notes that the process of designing the cancer center, producing the massive grant application, and preparing for the site visit has allowed for a great deal of exchange. "The process itself built bridges between people," she says. Massimo Loda, associate professor of pathology at HMS and director of the in situ hybridization and prostate pathology core facilities at the DF/HCC, agrees. "The experience has been a good one, a constructive one," Loda reflects. "It's demanding, but it's for a common cause." —Adapted by Tom Reynolds from stories by Robert Levy and Debra Ruder