Once again MSK has been named to Glassdoor’s list of best companies to work for in 2016 (and also on the list for the best vacation leave!). Coming in at #22, employees gave MSK a rating of 4.3.  “Very intelligent, friendly and team-oriented group of people,” one employee writes. “I love working for MSK. There is a great sense of pride and responsibility to our patients and ensuring things get done right.”

Chair of MSK’s Cancer Research Center, Dr. Scott Lowe, and Chief of Molecular Diagnostics, Dr. Marc Ladanyi, collaborated with scientists from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and identified p53 “loss of function” mutations that actually promote cancer, rather than inhibit it, by relocating to the mitochrondria. These truncated proteins are most often found in patients with hard to cure cancers, the ones that resist treatment and reappear after surgery.

Nitin H Shirole, Debjani Pal, Edward R Kastenhuber, Serif Senturk, Joseph Boroda, Paola Pisterzi, Madison Miller, Gustavo Munoz, Marko Anderluh, Marc Ladanyi, Scott W Lowe, Raffaella Sordella. TP53 exon-6 truncating mutations produce separation of function isoforms with pro-tumorigenic functions. eLife, 2016; 5 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.17929

Last month MSK announced it’s partnering with Hackensack Meridian Health/Hackensack UMC. The initial 10 year strategic partnership involves collaborating on standards of care, and adding the joint name to the NJ-based existing care centers (including MSK Basking Ridge, Monmouth, and Montvale), with a long-term goal of opening two new ambulatory care centers in NJ that will be jointly operated.

Dr. Jeffery Drebin, the 14th John Rhea Barton Professor of Surgery at the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania, was appointed the new Chair of Surgery, replacing Dr. Peter Scardino, who announced he was stepping down after 10 years as chair. Dr. Scardino plans to continue to practice and conduct his research on PSA at MSK.