Melissa Glim

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.

Posts By This Author

Mislabeled Proteins Linked to Birth Defects

IRP Researchers Discover Genetic Disorder Affecting the Brain and Skull

baby

A baby is born with a birth defect every four and a half minutes in the United States, adding up to one in every 33 babies born each year in this country. While some birth defects can be corrected or treated, many result in life-altering disabilities, and sometimes the child doesn’t survive. In fact, birth defects account for about 20 percent of infant deaths in the U.S. World Birth Defects Day, celebrated on March 3 each year, honors the people and organizations who are working to understand, prevent, and treat birth defects.

One of these organizations is the Undiagnosed Diseases Program (UDP) at NIH, which connects experts across the IRP’s 23 Institutes and Centers in a joint effort to find explanations for the “most puzzling medical cases" referred to the NIH Clinical Center.

A New View of How Muscles Move

IRP Research Challenges Long-Held Ideas About Muscle Structure

sprinter starting to run

It’s not every day an accidental observation overturns 100 years of biological knowledge. But that’s what happened when IRP Stadtman Investigator Brian Glancy, Ph.D., noticed something funny while reviewing high-definition 3D videos of muscle cells.

“To be honest, you could almost call this study an accident,” he says.

Dr. Glancy, who leads the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)’s Muscle Energetics Lab, often uses the high-powered microscopes available through the NHLBI Electron Microscopy Core to study how energy is distributed through skeletal muscle cells — the ones that control voluntary movement — when they expand and contract.

Although he was focused on examining the cells’ energy-producing mitochondria, he could also see the other structures inside them, including the long, tube-like structures called myofibrils that are involved in muscle contraction. As he advanced the video and traveled down the length of the muscle, it looked to him like the myofibrils were changing shape.

IRP’s Carolina Barillas-Mury Elected to National Academy of Medicine

NIH Researcher Recognized for Important Insights Into Malaria Transmission

Dr. Carolina Barillas-Mury

In many parts of the world, the high-pitched buzz of a mosquito is a harbinger of more than an annoying itch — it’s a warning of possible malaria infection. Malaria, a disease spread by mosquitos that causes high fever and flu-like illness, is a serious risk for nearly half of the world’s population. According to the World Health Organization, there were 241 million cases of malaria and 627,000 deaths in 2020 alone. More than 95 percent of them occurred in Africa.

Efforts to combat malaria using measures like preventative treatments and environmental mitigation have helped to reduce infections and deaths over the past decade, but those improvements have recently plateaued, according to IRP Distinguished Investigator Carolina Barillas-Mury, M.D., Ph.D., section chief in the Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Duo Delves Into Genetics of Diabetes

Drs. Leslie Baier and Robert Hanson Identify Genetic Risk Factors in American Indians

A team of researchers at NIH’s campus in Phoenix, Arizona, is working with the local American Indian community to learn about genetic risk factors for type 2 diabetes.

November is both Diabetes Awareness Month and Native American Heritage Month. Unfortunately, the month of November is not the only link between Indigenous populations and diabetes. Members of minority groups have a much higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes and its many complications compared to the general population, and this is especially true of some American Indian tribes, whose members are twice as likely to have type 2 diabetes as white Americans.

At the Phoenix Epidemiology and Clinical Research Branch in Arizona, part of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), IRP senior investigators Leslie J. Baier, Ph.D., and Robert Hanson, M.D., M.P.H., are working to understand why American Indians living in the southwestern U.S. are disproportionately affected by type 2 diabetes and obesity. Using family histories, medical records, and other data collected during a decades-long study of these communities, combined with extensive analysis of some of their participants’ DNA, their team has identified several genes that contribute to risk for those two conditions, along with some surprising findings about their prevalence.

IRP Research Investigates Tobacco-Related Health Disparities

Dr. Kelvin Choi Studies Commercial Tobacco Use in Underserved Communities

no smoking sign in a city

Each year, millions of smokers in the U.S. attempt to kick the habit. Many begin their journey towards a healthier life with the annual Great American Smokeout, which falls on the third Thursday of November — November 18 this year — and marks a day when all Americans who use commercial tobacco products like cigarettes are encouraged to stop.

While smoking rates in the U.S. have dropped from a hefty 42 percent of the population in 1965 to 14 percent in 2019, it remains the main cause of preventable death globally. In the U.S., 34 million adults still smoke cigarettes, and young people are being lured in by flavored e-cigarettes, which also pose health risks and can lead to smoking cigarettes. These tobacco-related behaviors are also unevenly distributed across the population, meaning some populations suffer the consequences of smoking disproportionately compared with others. IRP senior investigator Kelvin Choi, Ph.D., is working to understand why some groups are more likely to smoke, the effects of continued smoking, and the reciprocal interplay between those factors and health.

IRP’s Gary Gibbons and Eliseo Pérez-Stable Receive Government Award for COVID-19 Response

Pair Leads Public Health Efforts Focused on Underserved Communities

Dr. Gary Gibbons (left) and Dr. Eliseo Pérez-Stable (right)

In the spring of 2020, as the U.S. government implemented public health measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic, it quickly became clear that people in Black, Latino, and American Indian communities were significantly more likely to be hospitalized or die from the new disease than White, non-Hispanic Americans. While the work many scientists did to understand the virus and devise vaccines, diagnostic tests, and treatments made the news regularly, efforts to study and address racial disparities in COVID-19’s impacts were equally important.

When called to lead efforts to shrink those gaps, Gary H. Gibbons, M.D., and Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, M.D., rose to the challenge. The two IRP investigators, who respectively lead the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), helped direct two federal programs dedicated to providing underserved communities with information about, and access to, COVID-19 testing, clinical trials, and vaccines. In recognition of their life-saving work, Drs. Gibbons and Pérez-Stable have been awarded the COVID-19 Response Medal, a special honor bestowed this year as part of the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals. Also known as the “Sammies,” these annual awards recognize and celebrate exceptional work by government employees

IRP’s Steven Rosenberg Receives HHS Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service

Groundbreaking Immunotherapy Research Revolutionizes Cancer Treatment

Dr. Steven Rosenberg

Like many young boys, IRP senior investigator Steven A. Rosenberg, M.D., Ph.D., initially believed he would grow up to become a cowboy, a dream he shared with his older brother, Jerry. That plan changed after World War II ended and stories began coming out of Europe about members of his family who had perished in concentration camps.

“I just became so upset about the evil that people could perpetrate on one another,” he recalls. “Right then and there, I knew I wanted to do the opposite. I wanted to do things that would help people, and I developed almost a spiritual desire to become a doctor.”

He ultimately did become a doctor, and his pioneering research into how cancer interacts with the immune system has led to treatments that are reducing suffering for many people with cancer. In recognition of this groundbreaking work, Dr. Rosenberg was awarded the HHS Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service in August 2021. The highest honor given by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the award celebrates excellence in leadership, ability, and service.

Wearable Tech Tracks Ebbs and Flows of Bipolar Disorder

Research Suggests Sleep- and Activity-Based Approaches to Treatment

women wearing a fitness tracker

Mental Illness Awareness Week, observed this year from October 3 through 9, brings attention and support to the many patients and families who are coping with a variety of psychological conditions. Although an estimated 20 percent of U.S. adults and nearly 17 percent of youth have some type of mental health ailment, these conditions are still not well understood. However, research conducted at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is transforming our knowledge of one such mental health condition that affects more than two million Americans: bipolar disorder.

Breakthrough Treatment Brings Hope to Children with Tumor Disorder

Brigitte Widemann Recognized for Pioneering Work on Debilitating Disease

Dr. Brigitte C. Widemann

Getting diagnosed with a serious illness as an adult can be devastating, so one can hardly imagine the impact of receiving such news as a child, particularly when the disease has no good treatments. Until recently, this was the case for many children with the potentially severe and frequently disfiguring condition neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1). However, pioneering research led by IRP senior investigator Brigitte C. Widemann, M.D., led to the first-ever drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat the condition. For this groundbreaking work, Dr. Widemann, her IRP research team, and her collaborators outside NIH were named as finalists for the 2020 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals, also known as the ‘Sammies,’ an award that honors exceptional work by government employees.

Old Drugs Find New Potential Against Hepatitis C

IRP Research Highlights a Novel Target to Stop Viral Infections

drug-screening robot

On July 28, health providers, researchers, patients, advocates, and governments across the globe observe World Hepatitis Day. Like this year’s theme, ‘Hepatitis Can’t Wait,’ IRP researchers are wasting no time utilizing the unique resources at the National Institutes of Health to identify innovative ways to combat the virus.

IRP Distinguished Investigator T. Jake Liang, M.D., for example, has focused his life’s work on understanding how hepatitis viruses infect, replicate, and persist in cells. The viruses he studies, hepatitis B and C, together affect more than 10 percent of the worlds’ population and are the most common causes of chronic liver disease and liver cancer. The two viruses were originally discovered in the 1980s by another IRP scientist, Harvey J. Alter, M.D., who shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine for that work in 2020. Nearly three decades later, Dr. Liang’s lab at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) worked with scientists at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) to develop a novel test to screen thousands of molecules using a technology called high-throughput screening, which led to the discovery of several compounds with the potential to block hepatitis C infection.

This page was last updated on Wednesday, March 15, 2023