Melissa Glim, M.P.H., is a science writer and healthcare communications professional working with NIH’s Intramural Research Program to promote the innovative research being done at the NIH’s 27 Institutes and Centers and the scientists who are making it happen. Melissa has written about topics from Alzheimer’s disease to women’s health, covering basic science to patient education to policy and advocacy.
She supports a variety of clients from government, non-profit, and industry in strategic communications planning and implementation, coalition and partnership building, stakeholder education and outreach, and health and science writing and materials development. She has developed and led grassroots programs for Hadassah and the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, spoken on stem cell research and cancer survivorship advocacy at numerous conferences, created a web-based advocacy training program, and contributed a chapter to the Oncology Nursing Society’s textbook, Cancer Rehabilitation and Survivorship: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Personalized Care. Melissa has won three National Health Information awards for her articles. She received her Master of Public Health in Community Health Education from Hunter College School of Public Health and her Bachelor of Science in Science Communication from Cornell University.
In her spare time, Melissa loves making hats and jewelry, swing dancing, and writing the occasional children’s book, although most of the time, she’s waiting upon her beloved fox terrier, Tilly.
IRP Scientists Recognized for RNA Revelations and Immune System Insights
Since its founding in 1780, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences has honored excellence in fields ranging from the humanities and arts to math, biology, and physics. In 2023, two of IRP’s eminent researchers joined the ranks of such luminaries as Benjamin Franklin and Nobel Prize winner Barbara McClintock as members of the Academy for their work in immunology and RNA science.
IRP Research Investigates Disease’s Roots Beyond Smoking
Today is World Lung Cancer Day, bringing increased awareness to a disease most commonly associated with smoking tobacco products. Yet even though cigarette smoking rates have decreased over the past few decades, this deadly disease remains responsible for more deaths than any other type of cancer — more than 125,000 per year in the U.S. alone. In fact, between 10 and 25 percent of lung cancers occur in people who never smoked.
IRP Stadtman Investigator Jiyeon Choi, Ph.D., has always been curious about how our DNA influences the traits we have and our risk for diseases. When it comes to genes’ contribution to cancer risk, the stakes are particularly high, but Dr. Choi noticed a gap in research when it came to understanding the role genetic variation plays in lung cancer risk. She and her research team aim to fill this gap using a battery of high-tech genomic studies to root out the genes and molecular processes that make some people more susceptible to the disease.
NIH Scientist Spurred Revolution in Autoimmune Disease Therapy
IRP senior investigator John O’Shea, M.D., is a man of many talents. During his career at NIH, he has applied his creativity and drive not just to playing a variety of instruments in a rock band made up of NIH scientists, the Affordable Rock ‘n’ Roll Act (ARRA), but also to his groundbreaking research on the immune system.
This May, Dr. O’Shea, who is the Scientific Director at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for his influential research on the biochemical chain of events that kicks our immune system into gear, which has led to a better understanding of how genetic mutations interfere with the immune response, as well as the development of an entire new class of drugs that target the immune system.
IRP Research Brings Hope to Patients with Deadly Cancer
Among the many forms of brain cancer, glioma may be the most well-known, having recently taken the lives of Ted Kennedy in 2009, John McCain in 2018, and actor Tim Conway in 2019. Despite the attention drawn to it by the deaths of these public figures, glioma remains both mysterious and highly lethal. Fortunately, IRP researchers are fighting back against this stubborn foe. In preparation for World Brain Day on July 22, we talked with IRP Lasker Clinical Research Scholar Jing Wu, M.D., Ph.D., about her efforts to better understand glioma and identify potential therapies to treat the deadly disease.
IRP Researchers Explore How the Brain Shrugs Off Severe Stress
Deep within the brain, a structure called the hippocampus serves as a hub where memory and emotion collide, helping us to learn what not to do if we want to stay safe. However, for the 12 million people in the U.S. with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), those self-preservation instincts kick into overdrive, with severe consequences for quality of life.
June is PTSD Awareness Month, which draws attention to an often-debilitating condition that occurs when people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event or period in their lives continue to experience severe depression and anxiety for months or years afterward. While there are a variety of medications and therapies that can help people with PTSD, not everyone benefits from those treatments. Before scientists can develop additional treatment options, they must learn more about the biological roots of the condition, so IRP senior investigator Heather Cameron, Ph.D., is doing her part by examining how stress affects the hippocampus, one of the few brain regions where new neurons are continuously born.
IRP Research Examines Under-Appreciated Factors in Alzheimer’s Disease
This June, the observance of Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness month reminds us just how devastating the impact of Alzheimer’s and other dementias is across the world. About 55 million people are currently living with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias such as frontotemporal dementia and Lewy body dementia. This includes the estimated 6.7 million people in the U.S. over age 65 with Alzheimer’s disease, a population whose cognitive decline imposes huge financial costs on the American economy and often unrecognized burdens on the unpaid family members who provide care for those patients.
While the disease has been a target of intensive investigation ever since Alois Alzheimer first discovered clumps of amyloid beta protein and tangles of tau in the brain of a deceased patient in 1906, scientists have made only modest progress in treating it. Efforts to design drugs targeting the abnormal globs of amyloid and tau thought to cause Alzheimer’s have met with only limited success. That’s why IRP investigator Keenan Walker, Ph.D., is taking a different approach: exploring the link between dementia risk and the immune system.
IRP Research Aims to Explain the Perils of Peanuts and Other Foods
If you are a parent of school-age children, you’ve probably received a list of prohibited lunch foods and bans on birthday cupcakes. Going out to eat or cooking for guests can present a similar minefield of ingredients that many people must avoid. If it seems like food allergies are on the rise, it’s not your imagination. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the prevalence of food allergies has increased by 50 percent since the 1990s, making it a serious public health concern.
This May, Food Allergy Awareness Week reminds parents, kids, teachers, food service workers — really all of us — that we must remain vigilant to the risks of reactions to certain foods. These allergies affect nearly 32 million Americans, including 1 in 13 kids. If you think about the average classroom, that could be two or three children with severe allergies in one room. For many, even a tiny amount of an allergen can trigger a serious, even life-threatening response by the body’s immune system. To address this growing concern, IRP senior investigator Pamela A. Guerrerio, M.D., Ph.D., and her colleagues in the Food Allergy Research Section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) are working to unravel how genetics, immune system development, and environmental factors interact to cause food allergies in children.
IRP Research Breathes New Life into Therapies for Treatment-Resistant Asthma
It may start with a wheeze, a cough, or a feeling of tightness in the chest, but the result is the same. Acute asthma attacks make sufferers feel like they’re breathing through a straw while underwater. And even between attacks, having asthma can sometimes feel like your lungs are bound in tight bandages that make it difficult to take a deep breath.
World Asthma Day, observed this year on May 2, raises awareness of asthma, a common inflammatory disease that causes difficulty breathing in more than 260 million people worldwide, including 25 million in the U.S., roughly 8 percent of the country’s population. While many people can control their symptoms by taking medications and limiting certain activities, the condition still causes significant illness and even death.
Understanding How Parasite Feeds May Lead to New Treatments
World Malaria Day, commemorated annually on April 25, highlights the need to end an infectious disease that sickens nearly 250 million people around the world each year, killing more than 600,000 in regions where it is common. Children are particularly susceptible to its deadly effects.
Unfortunately, there is still no highly effective vaccine against malaria, so management is mostly limited to preventive measures like bed nets and medications that treat the infection, which must be taken over an extended period to effectively treat the disease and stop it from spreading. However, the speed with which the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, adapts to antimalarial drugs has created a critical need for novel treatments — a need that IRP researchers led by Joshua Zimmerberg, M.D., Ph.D., are taking a unique approach to filling.
IRP Researchers Pursue New Approaches to Treating Alcohol Use Disorder
While most adults in the U.S. consume alcohol in moderation, for nearly 30 million of them, going even one day without alcohol feels nearly impossible. For these Americans, alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a serious condition that harms their health, relationships, and career. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of people with AUD receive treatment, and even then, for many patients, the chances of a relapse are high.
As the search for a reliable and effective treatment continues, IRP senior investigator Lorenzo Leggio, M.D., Ph.D., is exploring the biological processes that underlie alcohol cravings to unlock new approaches to therapy. April is Alcohol Awareness Month, so we took the opportunity to speak with him about recent discoveries made by his IRP team and its collaborators.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, March 15, 2023
