Michele Lyons, curator of the NIH Stetten Museum, loves learning about what has and is happening at the NIH. She'd like people to understand that history is what we are making every day and to think about how we can document the present for the future.
Many scientists at the NIH used the metabolic chamber—a room constructed as a scientific instrument in which volunteers could live—to study how our bodies use air, food, and water under different conditions. Would you have volunteered for a study? Today's NIH Intramural investigators have even more advanced technologies to learn about energy expenditure's affects on obesity.
Few scientists have made as many important discoveries as Dr. Ichiji Tasaki, shown here with his wife and lab partner Nobuko, using many instruments that he made or modified himself.
Using real-time MRI, Dr. Keith Horvath's group at the NIH's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) can precisely implant a replacement porcine heart valve using a collapsible stent more safely and quickly than with standard techniques.
"The reason for using [real-time] MRI is three-fold," Dr. Horvath explains...
This dapper bee from 1977 advertised an NHLBI-sponsored multicenter, randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled trial designed to test the benefits of beta-blockers for people who had had a heart attack. The study was called the Beta-Blocker Heart Attack Trial (BHAT). Ah, you say—that’s why the bee in the hat!
We honor Dr. Hans L. Falk (1919 -1985) this Earth Day (April 22, but celebrated today, April 23, at NIH) for his significant contributions to the field of environmental health science as both a scientist and an administrator.
Countries that grow poppies used to hold a monopoly on the ingredients to the main opiate painkilling drugs. Then in 1979, Dr. Kenner Rice of NIDDK’s Laboratory of Medicinal Chemistry (he is now at NIDA) discovered the critical chemical reaction enabling large-scale production of totally synthetic morphine, codeine, and thebaine, the three basic raw materials in opium.
The cover is stained, the binding is broken, and the edges are burnt from use at a laboratory bench. Practical Pathology by Sir German Sims Woodhead, 3rd ed., 1892, belonged in the library of the original Hygienic Laboratory, which became the NIH in 1930. Although it has seen hard use in its 123 years, this book is now in the NIH Stetten Museum collection and begins a month showcasing some of our recent accessions.
The winning entry from the 2014 “In Focus! Safe Workplaces for All” photo contest is entitled “Biospecimen Inventory." It not only highlights the importance of proper gear, but also that of maintaining an accurate and up-to-date inventory of biospecimens.
“Had she been any less the brilliant, innovative, original, industrious, dedicated and resolute pioneer, her career would never have gotten off the ground, never have gotten started.”
The Ebola vaccine developed by Dr. Nancy Sullivan at NIAID is a Women’s History Month highlight: women developed the vaccine and coordinated and led the clinical trial, and a woman was the first volunteer to receive the vaccine. “That wasn’t planned, but it’s kind of remarkable,” said Sullivan. She explained her work to President Barack Obama in person.
This page was last updated on Thursday, March 30, 2023
