OBBR Staff

Dr. Carolyn Compton is the Director of the Office of Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research. She received her MD and PhD degrees from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, respectively, and trained in both Anatomic Pathology and Clinical Pathology at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital. She came to the NCI from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec where she had been the Strathcona Professor and Chair of Pathology and the Pathologist-in-Chief of McGill University Health Center. Prior to this, she had been a Professor of Pathology at the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital, where she had been the Director of Gastrointestinal Pathology for many years. Currently, she is an adjunct Professor of Pathology at the Johns Hopkins Medical School. In addition to human biospecimen science, her research interests include translational studies in colon cancer, pancreatic cancer, and wound healing. Dr. Compton currently holds several national and international leadership positions in professional organizations such as the College of American Pathologists, the Cancer and Leukemia Group B, the American Joint Committee on Cancer, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology. She is currently a member of the editorial boards of Cancer, Cell Preservation Technology and Clinical Proteomics. She has published more than 350 original scientific papers, reports, review articles, books and abstracts.

Dr. Richard Aragon is the current Program Director of the NCI's Innovative Molecular Analysis Technologies (IMAT) program, an OBBR-affiliated initiative directed at innovative technology development for cancer detection, treatment, and diagnosis. The IMAT program is a trans-divisional, multi-million dollar program aimed at the inception, development, maturation, and commercialization of cross-cutting and research-enabling molecular and cellular analytical technologies. Dr. Aragon received his bachelor's degree in Neurobiology from the University of California, Santa Cruz and his doctoral degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the George Washington University Medical Center. His dissertation research was done in the Laboratory of Neurogenetics at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and his post-doctoral work in Molecular and Cellular Oncology at the Georgetown University Medical Center. He has been affiliated with the National Institutes of Health for over 12 years.

Dr. Nicole Lockhart joined OBBR in 2006 as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Policy fellow. She has since been hired as a Biospecimen Technology Program Specialist working on ethical issues and biospecimen resource evaluation. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular and Integrative Physiology from the University of Michigan and holds a B.S. in Biology from Brown University. Her dissertation research investigated contraction-induced skeletal muscle injury and the cellular processes necessary to reduce injury. Prior to joining OBBR, Nicole was a Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellow at the National Academies of Science.

Dr. Helen Moore is the Biospecimen Research Network Program Manager in the OBBR. Dr. Moore has a broad background in research and product development. Dr. Moore joined the NCI from Celera Genomics, where she led and managed cross-functional teams to develop bioinformatics products focused on Comparative Genomics and data visualization; developed new drug targets for complex diseases using multiple approaches including genetic analysis of disease association study data, biological pathways analysis, literature mining, and genomic analysis; and contributed to the assembly and annotation of the human genome. Dr. Moore's postdoctoral work focused on signal transduction in the wingless/Wnt-1 family of proto-oncogenes. She earned her doctorate at Cornell University and her B.A. at Wellesley College. Her research experience includes work on human genomics and bioinformatics, fruit fly signaling, plant molecular biology, Alzheimer's disease, and synthetic skin.

Dr. Kimberly Myers joined the OBBR in 2008 and works on issues related to biobanking in support of personalized medicine, biospecimen science, and communicating with different stakeholder audiences. Dr. Myers has broad interests in science policy and scientific strategic planning. She first joined the NCI as a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF) in 2006. While completing details as a PMF, Dr. Myers worked in NCI's Office of Science Planning and Assessment (OSPA) and NCI's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Development Center. She also completed a detail in the Capitol Hill Office of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). Prior to joining NCI, Dr. Myers earned her B.S. in Microbiology from Middle Tennessee State University and her Ph.D. from Harvard University's Program in Virology in the Division of Medical Sciences. Her dissertation research focused on viral entry mechanisms employed by nonenveloped virions, with a focus on viral protein structure-function relationships.

Dr. Sherilyn Sawyer joined the OBBR staff in 2009 as a Biospecimen Technology Program Manager with primary responsibilities in the planning and management of research projects in biospecimen science funded by OBBR's Biosepcimen Research Network. Dr. Sawyer has a broad interest in science and technology innovation in cancer research. Dr. Sawyer first joined the NCI as a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF) in 2007. As a PMF she completed assignments with NCI's Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPOREs), the Small Business Innovation and Research Development Center (SBIR), and the Division of Extramural Activities Review Branch. Dr. Sawyer earned her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry from Boston University and a B.S. in Molecular Biology from the University of Nevada-Reno. Her dissertation research was focused in the field of molecular endocrinology; specifically on the role of select nuclear receptors in normal neural development and as targets and mediators of environmental endocrine disruption.

Dr. Jim Vaught is the Deputy Director in the Office of Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research. Dr. Vaught has been working in the field of biorepository and biospecimen science for over 15 years. In 1999 he was one of the founding members of the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories, ISBER, and was its second president. He participated in the development of ISBER's Best Practices for Repositories. Since late 2005 Dr. Vaught has been working in the OBBR on the development of NCI's Best Practices for Biospecimen Resources and the Office's other strategic initiatives. Among other international biospecimen-related activities, Dr. Vaught has consulted with groups in Italy and Korea on the development of biobanking networks. Since 2005 he has served as NIH's representative to the Interagency Working Group on Scientific Collections, which was created by the Office of Science and Technology Policy. He is also currently serving as a member of the NIH Intramural Scientific Directors Biorepository Committee. In addition to ISBER, Dr. Vaught is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the Association for Laboratory Automation, the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and the American Association for Clinical Chemistry. He is Senior Editor for Biorepository and Biospecimen Science for the AACR journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, and a member of the editorial board of Cell Preservation Technology.