epidemiology

Framingham at 70: Celebrating a Landmark Heart Study

Framingham Heart Study logo

At the start of his third term in 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s blood pressure was an alarmingly high 188/105—or, more accurately, alarming by today’s standards. But back then, nobody knew that high blood pressure was related in any way to cardiovascular disease (CVD). As a result, the nation was completely blind-sided when Roosevelt died of a stroke four years later.

The link between hypertension and CVD is now common knowledge due to a research program launched in 1948 called the Framingham Heart Study, now in its 70th year. To kick off American Heart Month this February, the Framingham Study’s current director, IRP Senior Investigator Daniel Levy, M.D., gave a lecture on February 1, titled “Unraveling the Mysteries of Cardiovascular Disease: Lessons from NHLBI’s Framingham Heart Study.”

Breast Cancer Awareness: How the IRP Recognizes October

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month, four weeks out of the year dedicated to bringing visibility and awareness to research in support of one of the most widespread and devastating cancers in existence.

Breast Cancer Cells

Meet Jill Koshiol, Epidemiologist and Stadtman Investigator

Jill is pictured in Linxian, China starting a pilot study to evaluate polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as a possible link to the high rate of esophageal cancer in the region (top). In Linxian, China, Jill is present for the set-up of a surgery to remove the top part of the stomach (gastrectomy) (bottom).

Jill Koshiol, Ph.D., is an epidemiologist and one of eight Stadtman Investigators who joined the NIH IRP in 2009-2010, the search's inaugural recruitment year. As a tenure-track principal investigator within the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG), Dr. Koshiol and her team study the epidemiology of infectious agents and cancer, and they are increasingly interested in the role of immune stimulation and inflammation in carcinogenesis.

In the following Q&A, Dr. Koshiol shares some thoughts on how she became a scientist and what's its like to conduct biomedical research at the NIH IRP.

Dentistry Research During the Depression Lays Foundation for NIH's NIDCR

Francis Arnold and Philip Jay

“And he said, ‘I can assure you that if you go through and become a good dentist, people will travel all over the world to find you. Chemists travel all over the world to find a job.”

That was the advice for Dr. Francis Arnold, who did become a dentist and helped establish the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, from his mentor, Dr. Thomas Hill, Professor of Clinical Oral Pathology and Therapeutics at Western Reserve University. The excerpt, and those that follow, come from Dr. Arnold's 1964 NIH oral history series. During the interviews, he discusses how his experiments and interests led him to become one of the four Public Health Service scientists who pioneered the study of fluorides and their effect on teeth.