Dr. Christopher Li named associate director of DEI for the Fred Hutch/University of Washington Cancer Consortium
Dr. Christopher Li has been named associate director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the Fred Hutch/University of Washington Cancer Consortium. This new role is in addition to his positions as professor in the Public Health Sciences Division and faculty director for the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion here at the Hutch, as well as research professor in the University of Washington Department of Epidemiology.
In this newly created role, Chris will coordinate and drive work that enhances the diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, efforts across our Consortium partner institutions and enables our Consortium to serve as a national leader in this space.
His vision is to partner with colleagues at Fred Hutch, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, University of Washington and Seattle Children’s to effectively harmonize, integrate and advance DEI efforts. He is developing and implementing a plan to increase the diversity of trainees, faculty and leadership across the Consortium to better reflect the diversity of our nation, with a focus on recruitment, retention and leadership development. He is also creating programs designed to increase diversity in our cancer research workforce and determining common metrics to use in monitoring our collective progress.
Cancer Basic Biology Program Upcoming Events The Cancer Basic Biology seminar series will re-launch on Monday, January 10. These seminars are open to cancer-relevant basic science researchers at all levels (student, postdoctoral, staff and faculty) in Seattle-area laboratories. All seminars will be held virtually on Zoom from 4-5 pm PST. No pre-registration is required.
January 10, 2022: Kelly Stevens, PhD: Deconstructing and Reconstructing Human Tissues February 14, 2022: Emily Hatch, PhD: The unexpected instability of the nuclear membrane March 14, 2022: Nicolas Lehrbach, PhD: Regulation of the proteasome by SKN-1A/Nrf1
Cancer Basic Biology Program Post-doctoral Research Symposium The Cancer Basic Biology Program will present a post-doctoral research symposium titled "Emerging Approaches in Cancer Basic Biology". The symposium will feature short talks from selected post-doctoral researchers in the CBB Program, as well as a keynote speech from Dr. Julien Sage of Stanford University, a leader in the field of pre-clinical cancer modeling.
This will be an in-person event followed by a happy hour, COVID-19 conditions permitting.
Date: April 25th, 2022 2pm - 6pm (including happy hour) Location: Pelton Auditorium, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Consortium Funding Opportunities The Catchment Area Health pilot competition, hosted by the Office of Community Outreach and Engagement, will open on January 10th. The general Consortium pilot competition will open on January 18th.To learn more about both competitions, visit the Funding Opportunities page on the Consortium website.
CONSORTIUM LEADER CLOSE UP
Starting with this issue of the Cancer Consortium Newsletter, we will focus on Consortium leaders from Research Programs and Shared Resources. For this issue, we are pleased to profile Elizabeth (Liz) Swisher, MD, Program Co-Leader, Breast and Ovary Cancers. As the director of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at UW Medicine, Dr. Swisher trains the next generation of clinicians, surgeons, and researchers in this field. In addition to teaching and working with patients, she conducts basic science and translational research, leading national and international trials in ovarian cancer. Liz took some time to tell us a little more about herself. Here is some of our conversation.
What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re not at work?
Outdoor activities, mostly. I like things like golf, hiking, skiing, and snowshoeing.
If you could move anywhere, where would you choose?
The French Alps. I really enjoy the mountains in the summer and the winter. There are great recreation opportunities year-round. I like wine. And the French language. And food – particularly really dark chocolate and cheeses.
What’s the best concert (or show) you’ve ever been to?
Seeing the Rolling Stones in high school on their Tattoo You tour. The album had just come out, and it was supposed to be their last tour. Mick Jagger had just turned 40, and I remember thinking that he had so much energy. It was at Candlestick Park, and there hadn’t been a concert there since the Beatles had played there. It was such an iconic venue and concert. One of the bands that opened was Little Feat, which I love. I also saw Bruce Springsteen in Paris when I was in college.
Does your family have any unique holiday traditions?
I always make oyster stew on Christmas Eve, which is a tradition from my grandmother who lived on the Chesapeake. We always go skiing on Christmas, too. Nobody’s on the mountain, so we have it all to ourselves, and my kids would rather ski and delay presents til later. It’s really great if you’ve got fresh snow, everybody’s always in a good mood.
Any other fun facts about you?
I was born in Dublin, Ireland. I have an EU passport, which allowed me to work in Europe in college. My kids are also Irish citizens.
FROM NIH
Consortium members are invited to provide input to the NIH via a listening session for their UNITE Initiative with your department/division/program, particularly your research staff. The initiative aims to establish an equitable and civil culture within the biomedical research enterprise and reduce barriers to racial and ethnic equity in the biomedical research workforce. Sessions will be focused on an identified affiliation and will be conducted December 1, 2021 – February 1, 2022.
You can find the best session related to your work/role and register here.
FROM THE OFFICE OF COMMUNITY OUTREACH AND ENGAGEMENT
The Office of Community Outreach & Engagement is thrilled to welcome Vida Henderson, PhD, PharmD, MPH, MFA as the Faculty Program Lead for Urban-Dwelling Populations. Dr. Henderson is a minority health and cancer health disparities researcher whose research is focused on health services utilization and cancer prevention and early detection. Her primary goal is to improve gender and racial health inequities by exploring associations between the social determinants of physical and mental health and behavioral outcomes. Dr. Henderson specializes in women’s health, qualitative methods, program evaluation, community-engaged research and health communication. Prior to her role as Assistant Professor in the Cancer Prevention Program, Public Health Sciences Division at Fred Hutch, she served as Director for the Office of Community Engagement and Health Equity and Senior Research Scientist at the University of Illinois Cancer Center.
Community Grants Program Information Session
The Fred Hutch/University of Washington Cancer Consortium's Office of Community Outreach & Engagement is inviting applications from community-based organizations for innovative projects to address and potentially improve multiple social determinants of health among underrepresented communities in Washington state. Click here for details on a virtual information session to be held on February 3 from 10:30 - 11:30 am.
As the Office of Community Outreach & Engagement has pivoted from in person to virtual outreach and education, they have launched a monthly podcast series entitled, “Cancer Health Equity NOW”, hosted by Community Health Educator Danté Morehead. Since the last CCSG newsletter, they wrapped up Season 1 and have kicked of Season 2.
November: Indigenous Relationality in Research, Pt. 1 (Featuring CHE Craig Dee (Diné), Dr. Marc Emerson (Diné), and doctoral candidate Dornell Pete (Diné))
After 30 years of dedicated service to Fred Hutch, Andrew Berger (the Director of Flow Cytometry Shared Resource) has resigned his position to assume a role at Sony Biotechnology. Andrew’s last day as a Fred Hutch employee was November 12.
Andrew started working as an intern at Fred Hutch in Dr. Beverly Torok-Storb's lab in Jan 1991. He moved to the Flow Cytometry facility in August 1991. At that time, the facility had a single cell analyzer and two cell sorters. Throughout his tenure, the lab has expanded to 21 instruments in three locations. Andrew has always pushed to bring the newest advancements in cytometry to the scientific community here at the Hutch, understanding that providing the most cutting-edge instrumentation would lead to more competitive grants and publications for the facility's user base.
Please join us in wishing Andrew happy (ski) trails!
Proteomics & Metabolomics: Tandem Mass Tags have been expanded to an
18-plex format Tandem Mass Tag (TMT) reagents are isobaric reagents that chemically “tag” proteins for multiplexed quantitative proteomics experiments. Protein lysates from multiple samples can be individually tagged with distinct TMT reagents and then combined into one multiplexed sample. The multiplexed sample is then processed and analyzed by mass spectrometry with the potential of identifying and quantifying up to 10,000 proteins in an experiment. Previously, multiplexing kits were available for 2, 6, 10, 11, and 16 samples to be analyzed simultaneously. ThemoFisher has now expand the TMT reagent set availability to an 18-plex with their TMTpro-18plex kit. For more details, see the following reference or contact the Proteomics & Metabolomics resource at proteomics@fredhutch.org. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jproteome.1c00168
Comparative Medicine Breeding Services Comparative Medicine Leadership has recently applied for funding to support expansion of colony management for our users (i.e., luxurious enriched IVC caging for breeders!). We expect colony management to be a hot topic in the coming months as we plan to expand offerings in this area, so watch for further updates. Briefly, Comparative Medicine, through Translational Research Model Services, currently supports colonies for on-site production of NSG, NRG, NSG-SGM3, and NBSGW mice. We also offer colony management services to lab-maintained colonies. In efforts to keep highly-coveted holding space available for your experimental needs (because we know all those "colony numbers request" emails from Amber really stress you out), we are aiming to eventually centralize breeding colony management, and to free up researcher's time and space for other tasks – like actually conducting animal studies rather than the support tasks of breeding, weaning, tagging, and genotyping. In addition to taking basic breeding management off your hands, we plan to work with the Preclinical Modeling Core team to help expand any newly produced GEMM colonies, work with Transnetyx to support automating genotyping services, and to provide microchipping for individual animals.
Look for updates to these services in the coming months. In the meantime, please contact Dr. Cassie Miller with any questions about your mouse colony management needs.
FRED HUTCH/UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON CANCER CONSORTIUM
1100 FAIRVIEW AVE. N., SEATTLE, WA 98109 cancerconsortium.org
The Office of Community Outreach & Engagement is thrilled to welcome Vida Henderson, PhD, PharmD, MPH, MFA as the Faculty Program Lead for Urban-Dwelling Populations. Dr. Henderson is a minority health and cancer health disparities researcher whose research is focused on health services utilization and cancer prevention and early detection. Her primary goal is to improve gender and racial health inequities by exploring associations between the social determinants of physical and mental health and behavioral outcomes. Dr. Henderson specializes in women’s health, qualitative methods, program evaluation, community-engaged research and health communication. Prior to her role as Assistant Professor in the Cancer Prevention Program, Public Health Sciences Division at Fred Hutch, she served as Director for the Office of Community Engagement and Health Equity and Senior Research Scientist at the University of Illinois Cancer Center. 
