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Greetings Colleagues! As you will see from this newsletter, there have been a lot of changes within the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) in recent months. Dr. Barbara Rimer, former director of DCCPS, is heading back to North Carolina, and Dr. Robert Hiatt, deputy director of DCCPS, is returning to the West Coast. We owe a great deal to Dr. Rimer and Dr. Hiatt for their leadership during their all-too-brief tenure at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). They arrived in 1997 with a mandate to create a new division within NCI that would conduct and support "an integrated program of the highest quality genetic, epidemiologic, behavioral, social, applied, and surveillance cancer research." In five short years they have done a tremendous job hiring scientific staff, crafting and supporting funding opportunities in cancer control, and making behavioral science research an integral part of cancer control within NCI. We wish them all the best personally and professionally, and hope to pay tribute to them by maintaining the progress of cancer control research in the years to come. They will both be sorely missed as leaders and colleagues.
There are a number of exciting news items in the pages that follow. The Biological Mechanisms of Psychosocial Effects on Disease (BiMPED) initiative marches on, led by Paige McDonald of the BBRB. We have also begun to formally promote basic decision making research within the branch, and have initiated a search for an extramural scientist to assist us in bridging basic and applied decision research in cancer control. Wendy Nelson will assume the lead in developing this scientific area.
We spotlight two of our grantees in this issue: Dr. Jamie Arndt of the University of Missouri - Columbia, and Dr. Michael Andrykowski of the University of Kentucky. These two principal investigators exemplify the high quality behavioral research supported by the BBRB.
Finally, we wish a fond farewell to Dr. Susan Thomas Vadaparampil, our Cancer Prevention Fellow, as she heads to the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, to work with Dr. Paul Jacobsen, another BBRB principal investigator.
We hope you will enjoy our fall 2002 BBRB Newsletter. Thanks primarily to Wendy Nelson, our newsletter now reaches more than 1,100 behavioral scientists interested in cancer control research. As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions for future issues.
Michael Stefanek, Ph.D
Chief, The Basic and Biobehavioral Research Branch
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