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Barbara K. Rimer, DrPH, and Owen Witte, MD, have been named to the President's Cancer Panel by President Barack Obama. The 3-member panel, which monitors the development and execution of the activities of the National Cancer Program, reports directly to Obama. Members serve 3-year terms.

Rimer is dean and Alumni Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Gillings School of Global Public Health. She is a member of UNC's Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and served as its deputy director until she was appointed dean in 2005. [Photo courtesy of Caitlin Kleiboer.]

Witte directs the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and is a scientist at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. [Photo courtesy of UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.]

Giulio Draetta, MD, PhD, and Lynda Chin, MD, will lead the new Institute for Applied Cancer Science at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, which aims to identify and validate cancer targets and develop new cancer drugs.

Draetta previously served as deputy director and chief research development officer at the Belfer Institute for Applied Cancer Science at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). He has also held appointments at Pharmacia and Merck and co-founded Karyopharm Therapeutics. [Photo courtesy of Giulio Draetta.]

Chair of MD Anderson's new Department of Genomic Medicine, Chin will serve as the Institute's scientific director. Formerly scientific director at the Belfer, she was a professor at Harvard Medical School and led the melanoma program at DFCI. [Photo courtesy of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.]

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