October 2006 dispatch@sloankettering.edu

With the application process for the Gerstner Sloan-Kettering Graduate School's fall 2007 PhD program now open, our inaugural class of graduate students have begun their studies in Memorial Sloan-Kettering's new state-of-the-art research building, The Mortimer B. Zuckerman Research Center. In addition to open-floor labs dedicated to such research areas as chemical biology, immunology, and human oncology and pathogenesis, the Zuckerman Research Center also is home to the graduate school's beautiful, new Student Center, which features a spacious Student Lounge, individual study space for each student, and classroom facilities equipped with high-tech communications and audio-visual equipment.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center is now poised to take greater advantage of a new era in cancer research and education with the opening of a state-of-the-art research center, the establishment of a new graduate school, and the founding of a novel research program in human oncology.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center scientists led by the Chair of Sloan-Kettering Institute's Cancer Biology and Genetics Program and faculty member Joan Massagué have discovered a new branch in the signaling network of a protein called transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta).

The mouse models, developed by postdoctoral research fellow Katerina Politi and colleagues working in the laboratory of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center President and faculty member Harold Varmus, were developed based on previous studies carried out at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and elsewhere that identified mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene in approximately 10 percent of US cases of lung adenocarcinoma.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering has announced the creation of the Molecular Diagnostics Service in the Department of Pathology and named faculty member Marc Ladanyi the service's first Chief.

Gerstner Sloan-Kettering Graduate School is one of six institutions this year to receive a (T90) grant from the NIH for Training for a New Interdisciplinary Research Workforce. These grants are part of NIH Director Elias Zerhouni's Road Map for Medical Research Initiative and foster the development of novel training programs at the undergraduate through postdoctoral level. The grant will be used to support student training.

The Starr Foundation today announced that it has made a $100 million grant to create a wide-ranging cancer consortium to coordinate the efforts of five internationally renowned research institutions in the fight against cancer. Joining this ambitious undertaking are The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, The Rockefeller University, and Weill Cornell Medical College.

A gift from the estate of renowned fashion designer Geoffrey Beene will enable Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) to launch an ambitious research initiative to be known as the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center. It will build on MSKCC's strong existing scientific and clinical programs with the goal of translating the revolutionary advances researchers have made in understanding how cancer works at the cellular level into equally dramatic progress in controlling it.