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Physician–scientist Stephen B. Gruber, MD, PhD, MPH, has been named director of the University of Southern California (USC) Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, effective December 1.

Gruber currently serves as the associate director for cancer prevention and control at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center and as the director of its Cancer Genetics Clinic.

A medical oncologist, Gruber's research focuses on genetic and environmental contributions to cancer. He is particularly interested in the genetic epidemiology of cancer, with an emphasis on colon cancer; the molecular pathogenesis of cancer; methods in genetic and molecular epidemiology; and clinical cancer genetics and translational research in cancer prevention.

Gruber will succeed Peter Jones, PhD, DSc, who has led the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center for the past 18 years. [Photo courtesy of Jon Nalick.]

Tyler Jacks, PhD, director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has been appointed to the National Cancer Advisory Board (NCAB) by President Barack Obama.

The NCAB, which advises the National Cancer Institute on policy, makes recommendations on future activities, and reviews grant applications, consists of 18 members who serve staggered 6-year terms.

At MIT, Jacks has pioneered the use of technology to study genes associated with cancer and to construct animal models of human cancers, including cancers of the lung, pancreas, brain, and ovaries.

An investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a past president of the American Association of Cancer Research, Jacks was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in 2009. [Photo courtesy of Paul Fetters for Howard Hughes Medical Institute]

For more news on cancer research, visit Cancer Discovery online at www.AACR.org/CDnews.