genetics

Postbac Poster Day Returns to NIH Campus

Budding Scientists Assemble for First Time Since 2019

IRP postbac fellow Vernon Kennedy with his poster at Postbac Poster Day

In many ways, working at NIH feels like being at a world-renowned university, complete with a variety of classes, intellectually stimulating lectures, social events, and opportunities for professional development. It’s no wonder, then, that NIH has long been a destination for young people who have just departed from their alma maters with their newly earned undergraduate degrees.

These new graduates come to the IRP to hone their scientific skills in NIH’s Postbac IRTA program, conducting research in IRP labs for one or two years under the expert guidance of the IRP’s seasoned investigators. The program also provides the opportunity once per year for participants to present the fruits of their efforts to all their IRP colleagues at Postbac Poster Day, and this year’s event on April 19 and 20 was the first to include an in-person component since 2019. Read on to learn about a few of the nearly 1,000 postbacs who showed off their research at this year’s event, which spanned fields from neuroscience and cancer to genetics and virtual reality.

Digging Up the Roots of Food Allergies

IRP Research Aims to Explain the Perils of Peanuts and Other Foods

foods that can trigger food allergies, including shellfish, peanuts, and eggs

If you are a parent of school-age children, you’ve probably received a list of prohibited lunch foods and bans on birthday cupcakes. Going out to eat or cooking for guests can present a similar minefield of ingredients that many people must avoid. If it seems like food allergies are on the rise, it’s not your imagination. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that the prevalence of food allergies has increased by 50 percent since the 1990s, making it a serious public health concern.

This May, Food Allergy Awareness Week reminds parents, kids, teachers, food service workers — really all of us — that we must remain vigilant to the risks of reactions to certain foods. These allergies affect nearly 32 million Americans, including 1 in 13 kids. If you think about the average classroom, that could be two or three children with severe allergies in one room. For many, even a tiny amount of an allergen can trigger a serious, even life-threatening response by the body’s immune system. To address this growing concern, IRP senior investigator Pamela A. Guerrerio, M.D., Ph.D., and her colleagues in the Food Allergy Research Section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) are working to unravel how genetics, immune system development, and environmental factors interact to cause food allergies in children.

Symposium Celebrates Award-Winning Female Scientists

Three Young Women Honored at Annual Event

Dr. Brittany Lord

There’s no doubt that science flourishes when it welcomes individuals with different backgrounds and perspectives. In pursuit of that goal, NIH has put considerable effort into closing the gender gap in the biomedical sciences, a field in which men significantly outnumber women, especially as the heads of labs and in leadership positions. Those efforts have so far yielded promising progress, with the proportion of women in IRP senior investigator positions increasing from 22 percent at the end of fiscal year 2016 to 27 percent at the end of fiscal year 2022. Over that same time period, women went from comprising 38 percent of IRP tenure-track investigators to 44 percent.

Part of what makes the IRP a welcoming place for female scientists is the NIH Women Scientists Advisors (WSA), a group of IRP scientists elected to represent the interests of women in the IRP. Once per year, the WSA selects a few female postdoctoral fellows or graduate students conducting research at NIH as WSA Scholars. At a symposium on April 13 honoring the achievements of this year’s Scholars, the awardees presented their efforts to learn more about a devastating childhood neurological condition, decrease health disparities in breast cancer, and use stem cells to investigate the roots of a nerve-destroying disorder. Read on to learn more about this year’s WSA Scholars and the important work they’re doing in their IRP labs.

A Look Back at the IRP’s History-Making Women

NIH Archives Document the Tremendous Importance of Female Scientists

two female technicians working in the lab

Women’s History Month is celebrated every March, and women scientists have undoubtedly made invaluable contributions to IRP research over the course of NIH’s history. Despite this, women still remain under-represented in biomedical science at NIH and elsewhere today, prompting the IRP to make supporting the careers of female researchers an important priority. While NIH works to rectify the gender imbalance in scientific research, it’s important to take time to celebrate the many women who, even when confronted with significant historical obstacles, have made a name for themselves in the lab and on the pages of scientific journals. Join me in taking a look through the archives of the Office of NIH History & Stetten Museum to learn about some of the many women scientists who have been at the forefront of science and administration at NIH.

Poster Session Showcases IRP Graduate Students

Event Includes In-Person Presentations for First Time Since 2020

people looking at posters at the 2023 NIH Graduate Student Research Symposium poster session

Three years after COVID-19 dramatically changed the way scientists and many others work, much of life in the NIH IRP has begun to resemble the way things were in February of 2020. This includes the return of in-person scientific poster sessions like the one that took place on February 16 as part of the 19th annual NIH Graduate Student Research Symposium. Nearly 130 graduate students conducting their Ph.D. research in IRP labs as part of NIH’s Graduate Partnership Program presented their progress at that poster session and its virtual counterpart held February 15.

The two poster sessions made it clear that IRP graduate students are essential contributors to the life-changing discoveries made at NIH, from using geckos to learn about human eye diseases to investigating how the immune system combats infectious invaders to exploring ways to improve cancer treatment. Keep reading to learn about some of the bright scientists-in-training who showed off their work during the two-day event.

Sugar Molecule Could Resolve Rare Diseases

IRP Research Hastens Development of First Treatment for Genetic Muscle Condition

cartoon highlighting one person in a crowd

An old medical adage warns doctors that when they hear hoofbeats, they should first think of horses, not zebras. After all, when someone comes into the hospital with a cough, the most likely explanation is something mundane like the flu. However, some patients truly are medical zebras, affected by a disease that afflicts very few others.

IRP senior investigator Marjan Huizing, Ph.D., has learned quite a bit about those zebras since arriving at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) as a postdoctoral fellow in 1998. To help commemorate Rare Disease Day today, Dr. Huizing spoke with the “I Am Intramural” blog about her research on an array of ailments linked to a small sugar molecule called sialic acid, some of which are extremely rare.

IRP’s Eugene Koonin Elected to National Academy of Medicine

Scientist Decoded DNA to Build a Genomic Tree of Life

Dr. Eugene Koonin

In 1973, the geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote a now-famous essay that declared, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” That sentiment has served as the guiding principle for the career of IRP senior investigator Eugene V. Koonin, Ph.D., who was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) in October 2022 for his contributions to the field of evolutionary biology.

Dr. Koonin’s pioneering efforts to identify clusters of similar genes found in different organisms passed down by a common ancestor — known as ‘homologous’ genes — has helped to unlock the secrets encoded in DNA and create a foundation for the systematic study of how genes evolve and function. His lab at the National Library of Medicine’s National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) uses a combination of genomic sequencing and mathematical modeling to compare genes across species and determine how they work and where they came from. From this information, his team can develop a systematic framework to show the relationship between genes as they evolved. It’s like drawing the tree of life, but on a genomic scale.

Friendly Virus Could Deliver Gene Therapy Under Immune System’s Radar

IRP Research Points to New Tool for Alleviating Genetic Disorders

antibodies combatting viral particles

With all the dangerous viruses out there, from the seasonal flu to the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, people understandably want to make sure their immune systems are topped-up with disease-fighting antibodies that block viral invaders. However, when it comes to the viruses scientists are modifying to deliver gene therapy, having a robust immune response is actually an obstacle to getting healthy. In a new study, IRP researchers showed that most people’s immune systems don’t react to a particular harmless virus that can effectively deliver new genes to the liver and heart, making it a promising delivery vehicle for therapies designed to alleviate a life-threatening genetic condition.

A Year of Honors for IRP Cancer Researchers

Four NIH Scientists Received Prestigious Recognition in 2022

clockwise from top-left: Dr. Michael Lichten, Dr. Susan Lea, Dr. Kandice Tanner, and Dr. Deborah Morrison

The complexities of cancer, which is actually a collection of many diseases, has made conquering it an enormous challenge. Fortunately, researchers in the NIH Intramural Research Program are up to the task. This year, four IRP investigators in NIH’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) have been recognized for their groundbreaking contributions to answering fundamental questions about the disease and the immune system’s response to similar threats.

Understanding the Foundations of Immune Defenses

IRP’s Mary Carrington Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for Insights Into Immune System Variations

Dr. Mary Carrington

Some people never seem to get sick, while others catch a new bug of some sort every other week. Humans are immensely variable both in their capacity to shrug off illness and in the ways their bodies respond to medical treatments. IRP senior investigator Mary Carrington, Ph.D., has spent her entire career exploring the biological roots of these differences, and the discoveries she has made earned her election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences earlier this year.