Framingham Heart Study

Let's Have Some Fun with NIH History

I've spent the last couple months scouring the NIH archives for the most interesting trivia tidbits I could find. Now you can entertain your colleagues and friends with these 10 fun facts about NIH!

1) Native Americans camped along the stream on the east side of campus beginning about 3,000 years ago. They left choppers, arrow heads, and other material evidence behind.

Native American stone artifact (left) and the stream on the NIH main campus where it was found (right)

Three Billion Base Pairs vs. One Powerful Computer

a stand of DNA

The human genome comprises roughly three billion base pairs and around 20,000 protein-coding genes, according to recent estimates. That’s a lot of information crammed into the tiny nucleus of a cell, and it doesn’t even include the many genes that do not produce a protein or the fact that most genes come in multiple flavors that vary in different individuals. Add to that the phenomenon of an identical gene being either more or less active in two different people and you can quickly end up with genomic datasets that would overload nearly any computer. Fortunately for IRP senior investigator Daniel Levy, M.D., the NIH IRP has one of the few computer systems in the world that can handle this mountain of information.

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.”

Six Paths Forward in Biomedical Research

NIH Clinical Center

Last month I moderated our annual retreat with the NIH Scientific Directors, those individuals tasked with leading their Institute or Center (IC)-based intramural research program. We were joined by many of the IC Clinical Directors. And this year we decided to do something a little different: listen to a series of talks about exciting, new IRP research.