NCAB Gains New Members

In early December 2012, President Barack Obama announced that he would appoint 6 new members to the National Cancer Advisory Board (NCAB).

The NCAB, established by the National Cancer Act in 1971, meets quarterly to advise on and help guide cancer programs run by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and other federal agencies.

Incoming NCAB members, all MDs and all appointed for 6-year terms, include the following:

• David C. Christiani, MD, MPH, professor of environmental genetics at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, MA;

• Judy E. Garber, MD, MPH, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston and director of the Center for Cancer Genetics and Prevention at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston;

• Elizabeth Jaffee, MD, professor of oncology and codirector of the gastrointestinal cancers program at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD;

• Beth Y. Karlan, MD, professor of gynecologic oncology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA;

• Mack Roach III, MD, professor of radiation oncology and urology at University of California, San Francisco; and

• Charles L. Sawyers, MD, professor of medicine at Weill-Cornell Medical College and chair of the human oncology and pathogenesis program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, NY.

According to its charter, the NCAB must include academic leaders in cancer-related health and science fields; experts in environmental carcinogenesis, public health, and behavioral sciences; and professionals in public policy, law, or economics. The 12 incumbent board members have terms ending in 2014 and 2016. Tyler Jacks, PhD, director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the current NCAB chair.

NCAB has “a broad mandate that includes clinical, basic, and prevention research as well as community outreach,” says Bruce Chabner, MD, director of clinical research at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and chair of NCAB until June 2012.

In the coming year, one of NCAB's challenges will be to provide advice on budgetary constraints. “During times of limited resources, the board has to consider cutting things that are less productive to make room for things that are the most creative,” says Chabner.

NCAB also is expected to continue to discuss NCI's role in global cancer research and its new Center for Global Health; proposed changes to NCI Cancer Center support grants to strengthen research, increase collaboration between Centers, and streamline applications; and searches for new leaders of several NCI groups, including the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics and the Center for Bioinformatics and Technology.