From genetic studies to pharmacology, the Orloff Science Awards honor the remarkable work and responsibilities our researchers undertake every day to make a difference in the world—science that truly matters and impacts human health.
Bill Branson has been a photographer at the National Institutes of Health since 1984, when he left the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Walter Reed. There, he had photographed the necropsy of the first chimpanzee in space, “Ham,” named for Hollomon Aero MED Air Base.
NIH Blood Bank nurse Peggy Wirtzek guides Clinical Center engineers carrying supplies from an emergency blood cart up 10 floors to the operating room during a power outage in March 1960.
NIH photographer Roy Perry had been a public relations photographer in New York City—a training experience that no doubt helped him when staging science photos.
“When President Reagan came to NIH and visited our ward, Phil took him on rounds and was holding a baby who had HIV. He said, ‘Here, Mr. President, why don’t you hold him."
Here’s a mystery with some history: President Harry Truman laid the cornerstone of the NIH Clinical Center on June 22, 1951. Someone removed it for construction reasons on June 14-17, 1977. Where is it now?
As a child I liked robots. Growing up in Korea, I liked cartoons and movies where people were on a mission to save the world with the robots they invented, and I wanted to develop a superhero robot someday, too. While my robot isn’t yet complete, the path I followed in pursuit of my goals eventually led me to explore data analysis.
And here I am, a postdoc at the NIH—probably the largest healthcare research institution in the world—in the Imaging Biomarkers and Computer-Aided Diagnosis Laboratory led by Dr. Ronald M. Summers. Our lab is part of the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at the NIH Clinical Center.
In 2007, the NIH Clinical Center (CC) established two research nursing roles that are critical to the success of the many studies undertaken at the CC. Clinical Research Nurses (CRN) are staff nurses who focus on caring for research participants, while also providing support for studies in a clinical delivery setting. Research Nurse Coordinators (RCN) are responsible for managing research studies and enormous amounts of data collection. They are in charge of recruiting and enrolling participants, maintaining study consistency, and overseeing regulatory adherence.
If you've been asking yourself what good your taxpayer dollars have been doing, let me tell you a story. I work at one of the most amazing places in the world. Every day I come in to work energized to see patients, to strategize how to bring new findings into the clinic and talk to brilliant scientists and physicians.
