SPORE Executive Committee (Article in 4/10/08 issue) (2008)

The “SPORE Directors: Unaware of Selecting or Electing Their Executive Committee” article in the April 10th issue does not accurately describe how the SPORE Executive Committee was selected. The facts are as follows: Initially (before the tenure of the current NCI Director) a small group of SPORE PIs including Drs. Minna, Gray, Bigner, and Bast were acting informally to make sure the SPORE program remained part of the NCI portfolio. At the request of that group and Dr. Niederhuber, the decision was made to formalize the establishment of a SPORE Executive Committee to encourage regular discussions regarding SPORE matters with the NCI Director. Accordingly, a call was made to all SPORE PIs for formal nominations and elections, which were coordinated by the NCI Director's Office. This was accomplished in an email call for nominations from the Director's Office nominations on June 11, 2007. In that email the process for establishing the committee was described. The committee would consist of two PIs who had been on the previous informal committee to provide continuity, and they would be elected and serve for a one-year term, plus two newly elected PIs who would serve for a two-year term. The SPORE PIs who were members of the original group were Drs. John Minna, Darell Bigner, Joe Gray, and Robert Bast. Self-nominations and nominations of others were requested by June 18th, 2007. The nominated slate was announced in an email to all SPORE PIs on June 19, 2007, and ballots were requested back to the NCI Director's Office by June 26th, 2007, and an email of the results was sent out on June 28th, 2007. There were four candidates nominated for a one-year term (including Minna and Gray) and 15 candidates nominated for a two-year term. Altogether, 44/66 (67%) SPORE PIs participated in the nomination process and 40/66 (61%) SPORE PIs participated in the voting processes. This resulted in the election of Drs. Minna and Gray for one-year terms and Drs. Grandis and Baylin for two-year terms with Minna selected as the “Chair” based on the number of ballots. These results were announced in an email to all SPORE PIs on June 28, 2007. Since their election and as described in the OT article in quotes from Dr. Niederhuber, we met by teleconference with Drs. Niederhuber and Doroshow approximately monthly including one in-person meeting at the NCI. Because we were acting as a sounding board and not as a FACA-approved advisory committee, formal minutes were not kept or distributed. However, as discussed by Dr. Baylin in the OT article, we tried to provide a broad perspective from the SPORE community as the NCI leadership was working through a series of changes. The SPORE Program will continue to evolve and the Executive Committee will continue to be a valuable source of advice for the Director. In order to insure that many points of view are heard, the membership of the Executive Committee will continue to rotate. Drs. Minna and Gray will rotate off the committee in November as announced at the April AACR meeting and will be replaced by newly elected members. We feel the final result of these discussions and the ongoing changes in the SPORE program will lead to a translational research platform that is stable, stronger, and better integrated into the overall NCI effort than previously and that has the full backing of the current NCI leadership. The Executive Committee commends these changes and is confident that the SPORE Program will continue to be at the center of translational research in the NCI for the foreseeable future. Of course, there are multiple other issues that will need to be dealt with as well, such as the SPORE guidelines, balance of SPORES, and the appropriate role of SPORES in clinical trials at several different stages in the research process. Discussions regarding changes needed to accomplish these objectives will continue to be held with the Executive Committee. SPORE PIs interested in actively participating in the process have been encouraged to stand for the next Executive Committee election this coming November. John D. Minna, MD PI, Lung Cancer SPORE, Director, Hamon Center for Therapeutic Oncology Research, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center Joe W. Gray, PhD PI, Breast Cancer SPORE, Associate Laboratory Director for Life & Environmental Sciences Life Sciences Division Director Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Adjunct Professor of Laboratory Medicine, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center University of California San Francisco Jennifer R. Grandis, MD PI, Head and Neck Cancer SPORE, Director, Head and Neck Cancer Program University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute Stephen B. Baylin, MD PI, Lung Cancer SPORE, Johns Hopkins Oncology Center, 1650 Orleans St. Baltimore, MD