Each year, NCI prepares a plan for building on research successes, supporting the cancer research workforce with the technologies and resources it needs, and ensuring that research discoveries are applied to improve human health. This annual plan is provided directly to the President of the United States for formulating the budget request to Congress. This document is made available to NCI staff; the research community; professional organizations; advisory groups; cancer information, education, and advocacy organizations; and public and private policymakers.

The FY05 plan includes continued investment in nine research priorities in core scientific and public health areas. It can be viewed online at http://cancer.gov/pdf/nci_2005_plan or can be ordered as hard copy through the NCI Publications Locator at https://cissecure.nci.nih.gov/ncipubs/.

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Dr. Barbara Vonderhaar has been appointed chief, Mammary Biology and Tumorigenesis Laboratory, Center for Cancer Research. After postdoctoral training in mammary gland biology at NIH, Dr. Vonderhaar joined NCI, where she has conducted pioneering research on the role of prolactin in breast cancer. Her current studies focus on local, hormonally driven growth regulatory mechanisms associated with normal mammary gland development and tumorigenesis. As laboratory chief, Dr. Vonderhaar will oversee research on development, differentiation, and tumorigenesis in the mammary gland, with an emphasis on multidisciplinary approaches encompassing areas such as endocrinology, molecular genetics, stem cell biology, growth factors, oncogenes, cell signaling, and animal model systems to understand the pathology of breast cancer.

Dr. K. "Vish" Viswanath, acting associate director, Behavioral Research Program (BRP), Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, left NCI on January 3, 2004, to continue his professional and academic interests at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

To fill this leadership role, Dr. Scott Leischow, chief of the Tobacco Control Research Branch (TCRB) since 2000, has been named the new acting associate director of BRP. Prior to joining NCI, Dr. Leischow was an associate professor of public health at the University of Arizona and the director of the Arizona Program for Nicotine and Tobacco Research. He earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in health education from the University of Maryland at College Park and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in behavioral pharmacology at the Johns Hopkins University, Department of Psychiatry.

Dr. Cathy Backinger has been named as the TCRB acting branch chief, a role familiar to her, as she held the position for a year prior to Dr. Leischow's arrival. Since coming to TCRB in 1998, Dr. Backinger has been responsible for the development and implementation of extramural research programs in smokeless tobacco and youth tobacco prevention and cessation. Dr. Backinger joined NCI from the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Devices and Radiological Health. She earned an M.P.H. degree from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. degree in health policy from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.