Profiles

Decoding Cancer’s Genetic Blueprint

IRP’s Stephen Chanock Elected to National Academy of Medicine

Dr. Stephen Chanock

IRP senior investigator Stephen J. Chanock, M.D., grew up on the NIH campus, spending many weekends hanging around his father’s lab. Robert M. Chanock, M.D., worked at NIH for 50 years, during which he identified the human respiratory syncytial virus and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) for his discoveries. Now, following in his dad’s footsteps, the younger Dr. Chanock has been elected to the NAM for his contributions to our understanding of how inherited genetic variation and environmental factors contribute to the risk of developing cancer.

IRP’s Lindsey Criswell Elected to National Academy of Medicine

Researcher Seeks Risk Factors for Autoimmune Disease

Dr. Lindsey Criswell

During the winter months, we all rely on our immune systems to keep us from catching a cold or the flu, or help us recover quickly if we do fall ill. However, sometimes the immune system itself is the source of our problems, producing one of dozens of ‘autoimmune’ conditions, some affecting specific organs and others affecting the entire body, with symptoms that range from irritating and uncomfortable to deadly. Even more alarming, while these ailments already affect as many as 50 million Americans, their prevalence is rising for reasons that remain unclear.

Lindsey A. Criswell, M.D., M.P.H., D.Sc., has spent her career investigating this mystery and tracking down the culprits behind autoimmune ailments, likely a complex network of genes and harmful environmental influences. Dr. Criswell, who is Director of NIH’s National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) and an adjunct investigator in the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2024 for her accomplishments in this area of research. Her work has identified dozens of genes involved in autoimmune diseases, as well as critical environmental factors that influence their risk and severity.

Welcoming NIH’s Four Newest Lasker Scholars

IRP Program Boosts Careers of Promising Physician-Scientists

clockwise from top-left: Dr. Lisa McReynolds, Dr. Chris Grunseich, Dr. Samira Sadowski, and Dr. Andrea Lisco

Many scientists have a seemingly single-minded focus on their research, but there are considerable benefits to having one foot in the lab and the other in the clinic. Working with patients gives researchers a daily reminder of the people they are working so hard to help and allows them to investigate the effects of promising but still experimental treatments in willing volunteers. That’s one of the main reasons why the IRP’s Lasker Clinical Research Scholars Program is designed to accelerate the careers of promising early-career physician-scientists. 

This year, four NIH researchers began receiving support from the Lasker program, allowing them to dramatically expand their cutting-edge research. From investigating the roots of muscle-weakening genetic conditions to probing the mysteries of rare, hormone-producing tumors, these individuals will use the leg up provided by the Lasker Program to make new discoveries that could one day improve their patients’ lives. Read on to learn more about the exciting research the latest crop of Lasker Scholars is pursuing.

Understanding the Body’s Universe of Atoms

IRP’s Adriaan Bax Elected to Royal Society for Pioneering Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Methods

Dr. Adrian Baax

“My mortal body is indeed a universe of atoms, but I am just an atom in the universe myself,” physicist Richard Feynman once wrote in a poem. Within our own bodily universes, all those atoms tell a story about how our bodies work — and how they sometimes don’t.

IRP Distinguished Investigator Adriaan Bax, Ph.D., has pioneered ways to watch those atoms using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) methods. This year, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in recognition of his research, which has contributed greatly to our knowledge of how the proteins and nucleic acids that keep our bodies running smoothly are structured, how they move, and how they interact, particularly in relation to diseases caused by their malformations and malfunctions. The Royal Society, which was founded in England in the 1660s, is a fellowship of many of the world’s most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence. 

IRP’s Thomas Kunkel Elected to National Academy of Sciences

Scientist Honored for Discoveries About DNA Replication

Dr. Thomas Kunkel

Our cells’ ability to create more of themselves is crucial for many aspects of health, but a cell without DNA can’t do all that much. For that reason, perhaps the most crucial step in cell division is the replication of DNA. IRP Distinguished Investigator Thomas Kunkel, Ph.D., has spent his career trying to understand DNA replication, what happens when the process goes wrong, and what influences the likelihood of mistakes. Earlier this year, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in recognition of his extensive contributions to this field.

IRP’s Giorgio Trinchieri Elected to National Academy of Sciences

IRP Scientist Has Found New Ways to Wield the Immune System Against Cancer

Dr. Giorgio Trinchieri

Over the past twenty or so years, we’ve seen a sea change in many cancer therapies resulting from advances in immunotherapy. Rather than trying to poison cancer cells with chemotherapy or rip apart their DNA with radiation, these treatments help our own bodies attack the disease. As a result, we’ve seen a remarkable reduction in cancer deaths from many types of tumors. 

NIH Distinguished Investigator Giorgio Trinchieri, M.D., has long stood at the forefront of these discoveries. This year, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for his achievements in identifying the mechanisms regulating the activity of certain classes of immune cells and how the environment around a tumor interacts with the immune system to suppress an immune response to the disease. This includes searching for ways to expand the benefits of immunotherapy to more patients.

A Lifetime Exploring the Kingdom of Fungi

IRP’s June Kwon-Chung Elected to National Academy of Sciences for Advances in Mycology

Dr. June Kwon-Chung

Even as a little girl, NIH Distinguished Investigator June Kwon-Chung, Ph.D., knew she would be a scientist. Seven decades later, she has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for her groundbreaking research on fungal diseases.

“My dream has always been to become a research scientist in the field of biology,” Dr. Kwon-Chung says. “This goes way back to when I was barely out of the toddler stage.” 

As a child growing up in Korea before it split into two separate countries, Dr. Kwon-Chung felt blessed to have parents and teachers who nurtured her interests early. Her participation in her junior high school’s “Biology Club” led her to focus on the study of bacteria as a student at the Ewha Womans University in Seoul, Korea, even though wartime disruptions made scientific study challenging. In 1961, she won a year-long Fulbright Smith-Mundt scholarship to study in the U.S. and chose to attend the University of Wisconsin, where she specialized in mycology, the study of fungi.

IRP’s Marston Linehan Receives HHS Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service

Honor Recognizes Groundbreaking Advances in Cancer Genetics

Dr. Marston Linehan

As an undergraduate majoring in English, IRP senior investigator W. Marston Linehan, M.D., was fascinated by the complex poetry of 18th-century writer William Blake. But as much as he loved puzzling out the deeper meanings behind literary metaphors and imagery, Dr. Linehan eventually realized he wanted to do work that had more tangible benefits for people. Biology, with its own deep and complex mysteries, fit the bill.

Nearly 40 years later, Dr. Linehan’s pioneering work in the study of genetic forms of kidney cancer has transformed how doctors treat the disease. Over that period, he and his colleagues discovered or co-discovered nine distinct forms of kidney cancer and identified 10 different genes that cause them. These discoveries have provided the basis for targeted therapies and new approaches to treatment and, this year, earned Dr. Linehan the HHS Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service, the highest honor given by the US government’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Med Students Dip Their Toes Into IRP Research

Dozens of Doctors-To-Be Spent a Year Working in IRP Labs

NIH MRSP participants (clock-wise from top-right): Maame Amoako, Megan Jiao, Brady Greene, and Abhinav Suri

American medical and dental schools do an excellent job of producing caring and knowledgeable medical professionals, but they don’t always provide opportunities for their students to get a taste of life in the lab. For a few dozen of those students each year, NIH’s Medical Research Scholars Program (MRSP) fills in that gap, welcoming a cadre of future physicians to NIH for a year of research in IRP labs. 

Over the past year, 52 medical students have been getting their feet wet in biomedical research under the guidance of experienced IRP scientists. Whether investigating new ways to detect diabetes or trying to improve ADHD treatment, the 2023-2024 class of MRSP participants received a world-class crash course in how to make new discoveries that will improve patients’ lives. Read on to get your own crash course on some of the exciting research they have been conducting over the past year.

NHGRI Director Eric Green Elected to National Academy of Medicine

Sequencing the Human Genome Sparks Transformation in Medicine

Dr. Eric Green next to a drawing of a DNA molecule

Few people can say they got in on the ground floor of a foundational achievement in science, but that’s where Eric Green, M.D., Ph.D., Director of NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), found himself when he began his career. It’s no wonder, then, that he was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Medicine (NAM) in October 2023.

Thirty four years ago, as a newly minted physician-scientist, Dr. Green joined the Human Genome Project, an initiative that had among its leaders former NIH Director Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D. The initiative aimed to determine the order of the roughly 3 billion DNA building blocks, called nucleotides, that constitute the genetic blueprint for building and operating our bodies. Today, Dr. Green leads the NIH Institute that was established to lead NIH’s contribution to that ambitious endeavor, overseeing the investigation and application of information and technologies that drive the application of genomics to modern-day medicine.