Four UC Davis Cancer Center faculty have been tapped for prestigious national and regional posts:

David R. Gandara has been elected co-chair of the National Cancer Institute's Investigational Drug Steering Committee. The committee is charged with recommending reforms of the nation's clinical cancer research enterprise. Gandara is a professor of hematology and oncology, associate director for clinical research at UC Davis Cancer Center and director of the Thoracic Oncology Program. He is chair of the Southwest Oncology Group's Lung Committee.

Andrew Vaughan, a radiobiologist in the Department of Radiation Oncology, was appointed to serve as a member of the National Institutes of Health's Basic Mechanisms of Cancer Therapeutics Study Section. The committee reviews grant applications submitted to the National Institutes of Health.

Marlene von Friederichs-Fitzwater, assistant adjunct professor of hematology and oncology and director of the UC Davis Cancer Center's Outreach Research and Education Program, has been appointed by the American Cancer Society to a two-year term as ACS legislative ambassador for the state of California.

Sidney Scudder, professor of hematology and oncology, was elected president of the Western Association of Gynecologic Oncology for 2006.