PLANNING AND EVALUATION COREThis section describes the Planning and Evaluation Core. The overall goal of the Planning and EvaluationCore is to assess the progress of the collaboration. Toward that end, the Planning and Evaluation Core willreview the various components of the partnership to ensure that the goals and objectives of the collaborationare met. The committees established in this Core will meet regularly to review and establish short- and longtermgoals, progress of the projects, and will review new pilot projects for the development Core.A. Internal ProcessesThe Internal Advisory Committee (IAC) is comprised of scientists at the FHCRC and NMSU. Each individualwas selected based on his/her knowledge and expertise of areas related to this application. The IACmembership is briefly described below.New Mexico State University MembersCarl Kendall. Dr. Kendall is the new holder of the Stan Fulton Endowed Chair in Health Disparities and directorfor the Southwest Center for Health Disparities Research. He also serves as Associate Dean for Research forthe College of Health and Social Services at NMSU. Kendall is new to NMSU after a career at the TulaneUniversity School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in Louisiana, and The Johns Hopkins BloombergSchool of Pubic Health. Dr. Kendall received the distinguished research faculty award from Tulane for 2002,2003, 2004 and 2005. He has collaborated with colleagues at the Tulane Cancer Center and the LouisianaCancer Consortium where he mentored junior faculty to develop proposals to enhance breast cancer screeningamong African-American populations. He has collaborated with colleagues in more than 40 countries toaddress global problems of maternal and childhood illnesses, vector-borne diseases, and HIV/AIDS. CurrentlyKendall manages projects in eight countries with full-time staff in four of those countries. Dr. Kendall is fluentin Spanish and has taught university graduate courses in Spain and Guatemala.Vimal Chaitanya, Before becoming the NMSU Vice President for Research Graduate Studies and InternationalPrograms in July 2006, Dr. Chaitanya was the director of the Advanced Materials Processing and AnalysisCenter (AMPAC) at the University of Central Florida (UCF). He was also the director of UCF's MaterialsScience and Engineering program and its Materials Characterization Facility. Dr. Chaitanya received theUniversity of Central Florida's Research Achievement Award in 2002 and the UCF Leadership Award in 1999.He is a five-time winner of his academic department's Researcher of the Year award. He has a Ph.D. inmaterials science and engineering from The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, a master's degree inbioengineering from Clemson University in South Carolina, and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineeringfrom M.S. University of Baroda, India.Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center MembersHarmit S. Malik. Dr. Malik is an Assistant Member at the FHCRC and an Affiliate Assistant Professor ofGenome Sciences at the University of Washington. Dr. Malik's lab is interested in evolutionary studies ofgenetic conflict to gain insights into their mechanisms and consequences. Genomes are a tenuousconglomerate of different genetic entities, each trying to maximize their own evolutionary success, often atgreat cost to their genomic neighbors. This can create problems for the host organism. To gain insights intothese mechanisms, Dr. Malik's lab studies centromeres, mobile genetic elements, and rapidly evolving proteinsin Drosophila. Dr. Malik will provide great expertise in biology and the drosophila studies.Julian Simon. Dr. Simon is an Associate Member at the FHCRC and an Affiliate Associate Professor in theMolecular and Cellular Biology Program at the University of Washington.
The aim of his lab is to identify newanticancer drugs. This is done through using the genetic context of the cancer cell as the drug target. Thesecond broad strategy is to use chemical genetics to find better anticancer drugs. Other projects in the labinclude the study of genetic interactions of mismatch repair mutants with ribonucleotide reductase as a strategyfor the identification of drugs for the treatment of tumors with mismatch repair defects. Dr. Simon was involvedin the U56 and has excellent understanding of how the collaboration operates.Ad Hoc Members Whenever there is a call for new proposals within the U54 collaboration, a 'study section'will be convened to review and critique the proposals. We followed this format during the U56 award andfound this to be an effective way to match proposals with expertise in the areas covered by the proposal.Members from both institutions will be identified and recruited by the IAC to review proposals (see below).These reviewers will form a study section to discuss and rank the proposals received and to makerecommendations for improvements.External Activities: The Program Steering Committee (PSC)Five members have been selected to serve on the PSC. They will act as advisors to the lead Pis and the NCIProject Officer. They have been selected for their skills in specific areas. Each is described below.Sonia C Flores, Ph.D. Dr. Sonia Flores is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at theUniversity of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, CO. She is also the Director of the UCHSCGraduate Training for Multicultural Students Summer Internship Program. Her research interests includeexamination of HIV-1 Tat transcriptional protein and its pro-inflammatory effects on endothelial cells,oxidant/antioxidant balance in HIV infection, molecular mechanisms of human Mn-superoxide dismutaserepression by HIV-1 Tat protein, and redox modulation of transcriptional factor activity. She has writtennumerous articles on these topics. Dr. Flores also serves as the advisor to a summer internship program forgraduates in biology. Dr. Flores has been on the PSC for the past three years and has made invaluablecontributions to some of the basic science projects.J. Victor Garcia-Martinez, Ph.D. Dr. Garcia-Martinez is a professor in the departments of Internal Medicineand Microbiology at the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX. He is nationallyknown for his skills in virology and molecular biology. His current work focuses on HIV, AIDS, and viralpathogenesis, with an emphasis on understanding the host pathogen relationship at the molecular level. Fromthat understanding, he develops rational approaches to therapy and vaccine development. Another majorinterest for Dr. Garcia-Martinez is cell and gene therapy. In his laboratory, highly efficient gene transfersystems have been developed. Focusing on the human hematopoietic stem cell, his lab has developed axenograft model to reconstitute the human hematopoietic system in immune deficient mice, allowing anexcellent way to evaluate some gene therapy approaches. Dr. Garcia-Martinez received his training in Mexico,at the FHCRC, at NIH, and at MIT. He has been on the PSC for the past five years and served as PSC chairfor two years, making outstanding contributions.George Hammons, Ph.D. Dr. George Hammons is Professor of Chemistry at Philander Smith College in LittleRock, Arkansas, where he has chaired the Department for the past eighteen years. He was also Director of theMinority Biomedical Research Support Program at Philander Smith for twelve years. In addition to his activeengagement in the training of undergraduate students in chemistry and other sciences, he has also developedout-reach activities for junior high and high school students to encourage their participation and development inthe sciences. After completing the undergraduate degree in chemistry and mathematics at Philander Smith, hereceived his doctoral training in biochemistry at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has hadresearch interest in the area of chemical carcinogenesis; and more recently, his research has focused on thepotential role of dietary agents in cancer chemoprevention and on epigenetics in the regulation of xenobioticmetabolizingenzymes. Dr. Hammons has served on the PSC for the past two years and has made excellentcontributions to the chemistry projects.Sally Vernon, Ph.D. Dr. Vernon is a Professor of Behavioral Sciences and Epidemiology at the University ofTexas Health Science Center at Houston, TX and the Director of Health Promotion & Behavioral Sciencesthere. She has a long history of working in public health with the Latino population. She specializes indesigning behavioral interventions to increase participation in cancer screening, including interventions toincrease participation in breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening. Her work has resulted in some keypublications on barriers to screening. Dr. Vernon also conducts studies of informed decision making forprostate cancer screening. She does research on the psychosocial aspects of cancer genetic testing, seekingout motivations for having or not having genetic testing. Dr. Vernon has been on the PSC for the past fouryears and has made outstanding contributions, especially to the public health projects.N. David Yanez, Ph.D. Dr. Yanez is an Associate Professor of Biostatistics and the Director of the GraduateProgram in Biostatistics at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. Dr. Yanez's research interests includeanalysis of overdispersed data, joint modeling of mean and dispersion parameters, and quasi-likelihoodmodels. His research has included examination of the costs of health care utilization, numerous articles on theeffects of cardiovascular disease, and the examination of statistical errors in longitudinal data. He also hascollaborated on a careful assessment of the effects of clinical trials on clinical practice. Dr. Yanez hasparticipated in a number of clinical trials and is well-known for his expertise in applied biostatistics. In short, Dr.Yanez has a broad understanding of biostatistics as they apply to many different areas of interest. In addition,Dr. Yanez has been the faculty sponsor for L'PROGRESO, an organization of graduate and professionalLatino students of the sciences at the University of Washington since 1995. He has been key in providingmentorship for Latino students. Dr. Yanez has been on the PSC since the U56 was funded and has madeoutstanding contributions.
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