Vice President Launches Cancer Moonshot
BU IN DC
David Sherr and Wendy Heiger-Bernays of the School of Public Health met with staff from several Massachusetts Congressional offices to discuss the work of the BU Superfund Research Program on January 29.
David Jones of the School of Public Health spoke at the National Health Policy Conference on February 1.
Thomas Bifano of the Photonics Center and Timothy Gardner of the College of Arts & Sciences and the College of Engineering participated in a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) workshop on Neural Engineering System Design on February 1 and 2.
VICE PRESIDENT LAUNCHES CANCER MOONSHOT
On Monday, Vice President Joe Biden convened the first meeting of the Cancer Moonshot Task Force, an interagency group that will carry out the Obama Administration’s goal of leveraging federal, industry, and philanthropic support to “eliminate cancer as we know it.” The Administration also announced that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) would immediately use $195 million to begin Cancer Moonshot activities. The NIH will focus its efforts on prevention and vaccine development, early detection using genomic and proteomic technologies, immunotherapy, data sharing, and pediatric cancer. The White House plans to request an additional $755 million for the NIH and the Food and Drug Administration in its forthcoming budget, as well as an unspecified amount for the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.
BUZZ BITS…
- On January 30, the Obama Administration announced a new “Computer Science for All” initiative which includes $135 million in National Science Foundation (NSF) funding to train computer science educators.
- The U.S. Department of Education this week announced new steps to improve transparency and accountability in higher education accreditation.
- Both NSF and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently issued statements reiterating their zero-tolerance policy for gender-based discrimination by grantee institutions, in accordance with Title IX regulations governing colleges and universities.
EVENT NEWS YOU CAN USE
The National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) is hosting the Medical Research, Development, and Acquisition in Support of the Warfighter Conference with the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC) on April 19 and 20 in Ellicott City, Maryland. BU faculty interested in building relationships with DOD biomedical officials and program managers should register, as the conference will help investigators craft proposals that meet DOD needs and engage with a funding agency that requires networking for success. Attendees will learn about the medical missions and programs across the Department of Defense (DOD), including the Army, Navy, Air Force, and the Defense Health Agency.