Today, we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy by observing his message and his impact on society. His message of human rights and social justice is as relevant today as it was 50 years ago.
In our latest post in the “I am Intramural” series, we want to touch on the second theme to emerge from our survey into what being part of the NIH IRP means to our scientists and staff – “freedom and flexibility.”
The turn of the 20th century brought exponential advancements in technology and science. While intrepid explorers like Cook and Peary journeyed over the tundra and ice in search of the North Pole—at that time considered the final frontier of land exploration—the budding National Institutes of Health (NIH) was also journeying into the unknown with a charge to protect the public from organisms existing at the very edges of life.
During my Ph.D., I decided to pursue my thesis project in a lab working in the RNA field and, more specifically, on the mechanisms of alternative splicing regulation. Moving onto my post-doctoral training, I decided to stay in this field mainly because I found it fascinating to work with RNA. It is such a flexible and diverse molecule, but also largely unexplored. I believed that this relatively new area of research would attract more interest among scientists, and the last few years show that I was thinking in the right direction.
This is National Influenza Vaccination Week. Since we are in the midst of flu season, it is an appropriate time to highlight the importance of continuing influenza vaccination. I won’t go into the details of the NIH Foil the Flu campaign, the annual flu vaccination clinic sponsored by the Office of Research Services that provides all NIH staff and contractors with the seasonal flu vaccine for free. Instead, I’d like to highlight the importance of influenza research and a couple of intramural investigators who are tackling interesting questions along the pipeline to creating safe and effective influenza vaccines.
I have been thinking a lot recently about how the tools we use in our work have improved so dramatically in the last few decades and how this is mostly down to the frequently disparaged study of microbes. While everyone can get behind studying bacteria that cause life-threatening diseases like typhoid fever and cholera, I think that it is often harder to convince people of the value of studying ordinary and sometimes obscure bacteria that do not directly affect human health. However, over the years, such studies have revolutionized many aspects of our lives.
How did I end up here? Nearly two decades of school. Countless coffee cups, pages of notes, and lost hours of sleep. College came and went like a whirlwind. Finally, I graduated with the piece of paper that people have been telling me is the ticket to the rest of my life: a Bachelor’s degree. Not only does this paper signify a level of previously non-existent expertise, it is also a stepping-stone to whatever’s next.
Dr. L. Michelle Bennett, Director of the Center for Research Strategy at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), has lectured extensively on the subject of “Collaboration and Team Science” in conjunction with former NIH Ombudsman Dr. Howard Gadlin. Their Field Guide has become the go-to resource for scientific teams around the world who are interested in establishing successful collaborations. We spoke with Dr. Bennett about why collaboration plays such an essential role in science today and why researchers within the IRP value access to it so highly.
