A Conversation with World-renowned Cellist Yo-Yo Ma
BY EMILY PETRUS, NINDS
“How can I keep from singing?” intoned NIH Director Francis Collins as he played his guitar to the tune of the 1800s hymn, “Always Rejoicing.” The lyrics had a new meaning; who wouldn’t want to sing when you’re accompanied by a world-renowned cellist like Yo-Yo Ma.
Meet Six New Stadtman Investigators
BY LAURA STEPHENSON CARTER
In 2009, the NIH launched the Earl Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigator Program, which aims to recruit a more diverse group of scientists pursuing interests across the biomedical-research spectrum. Meet the six Stadtman Investigators—all women—from the 2013–2014 recruitment cycle: Shahinaz Gadalla (NCI-DCEG); Romina Goldszmid (NCI-CCR); Astrid Haase (NIDDK); Katrin Mayer-Barber (NIAID); Robin Stanley (NIEHS, pictured); and Britton Trabert (NCI-DCEG).
Government Collaboration with Industry Helps Drug Development
BY ADAM THOMAS
You may have seen ads on television for Xeljanz (tofacitinib), a drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. Don’t ask me where the name came from. But I can tell you that the drug itself was the brainchild of NIH physician and immunologist John O’Shea.
Let the Cores Roar
CREx Will Enable Access to Core Services across the IRP
BY MICHAEL GOTTESMAN, DDIR, AND ANDY BAXEVANIS, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY, OIR
Scientific resources abound in the Intramural Research Program (IRP) from cores creating antibodies to growing zebrafish. There are so many resources, in fact, that it can be difficult to know what they are and how you can use them. One of the action items arising from the IRP’s long-term plan is finding ways to make most core resources, equipment, and facilities accessible to all scientists throughout the NIH.
Introducing James Gilman (pictured), the new CEO for the NIH Clinical Center; big water, thermal storage tanks being built on campus.
Meet your recently tenured colleagues: Aimée Kreimer (NCI-DCEG); Karin Peterson (NIAID); Hari Shroff (NIBIB, pictured); and Li Yang (NCI-CCR).
Intramural research highlights: Cellular immunotherapy for cancer; decline in hearing loss; veterans endure severe pain; cerebral malaria’s deadly agents; identifying potential therapies against drug-resistant malaria; Zika vaccine trial; new way to replace aortic valve; faster wound healing; gene therapy for treating Niemann-Pick disease; no safe level of smoking; cigarette smoking during pregnancy linked to changes in baby’s immune system.
Dr. Paul Farmer Gives 2016 Barmes Lecture
BY LESLEY EARL, NCI
To improve global health equity, “what you really need are the staff, stuff, space, and systems,” said physician Paul Farmer, co-founder of the nonprofit Partners in Health and professor and chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School (Boston). “Research has to be linked to training, [to] local capacity building, and to actually taking care of people.”
Nuclear Hormone Receptors Featured
BY KELLY LENOX, NIEHS
Not to be outdone by the NIH Research Festival, which takes place in Bethesda each fall, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) holds its own annual celebration of science: Science Days, which took place November 3–4, 2016. This year’s theme was nuclear hormone receptors, which mediate environmental impacts on the body.
The NIH Library invites NIHERs to use its new digital production studio; check out Nephele, NIAID’s newest resource for microbiome data analysis.
Former NIH scientists and other NIH-affiliated people who died in 2016.
NIH Female Surgeon, A Pioneer in Heart Surgery
In 1960, Nina Starr Braunwald, who was the first woman to be board-certified as a cardiac surgeon, led the NIH team that was the first to replace a human mitral valve (which she also designed).
NEWS FROM AND ABOUT THE NIH SCIENTIFIC INTEREST GROUPS
The Global Health Interest Group reports on its symposium that featured talks on portable technologies, Earth-observing satellites, developmental economics, social media, and infrastructure improvements; New SIG: Neuroscience Clinical Trials.
New Cajal drawings in Building 35A; Pi Day; FARE awards applications process begins soon; DeMystifying Medicine in underway; History of Medicine lectures; other lectures and events
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