Women Scientists Advisors Select Three Young Researchers for Recognition
By Brandon Levy
Thursday, May 19, 2022
While women have now overtaken men in terms of admission and enrollment in undergraduate education, they remain underrepresented in the sciences. This includes at NIH, where 74 percent of senior investigators and 54 percent of tenure-track investigators are male, according to the most recent statistics available. Consequently, NIH is putting considerable effort into supporting women scientists at all stages of their careers.
One NIH entity dedicated to this important work is the NIH Women Scientists Advisors (WSA), a group of women elected to represent the interests of women scientists in the IRP. Among its many initiatives, each year the WSA chooses several female postdoctoral fellows or graduate students in the IRP to receive the WSA Scholar Award in recognition of their outstanding scientific achievements. The awardees present their research at the annual WSA Scholars Symposium, which this year was held on April 25 and recognized young women leading efforts to better understand how disease-related genes evolved, an investigation of how a fatty liver can give rise to liver cancer, and the evaluation of a way to deliver gene therapy for a rare genetic disease. Read on to learn more about this year’s WSA Scholars and the impressive discoveries they have made during their time in the IRP.
IRP Researchers Find Link Between Dementia and Byproducts of Cholesterol Breakdown
By Melissa Glim
Monday, March 14, 2022
When most people think about Alzheimer’s disease, the liver is probably the organ least likely to come to mind. Yet recent IRP research suggests that molecules called bile acids, which are synthesized in the liver, may influence the development of Alzheimer’s disease. In honor of Brain Awareness Week this week, we’re diving into that work to learn how such an unlikely target could help lead to new treatments for Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
To date, efforts to develop therapies for Alzheimer’s disease, which affects more than 6 million Americans over the age of 65, have achieved little success. Many scientists are focused on proteins in the brain as potential treatment targets, including the ‘amyloid-beta’ protein now infamous amongst Alzheimer’s researchers. In contrast, IRP senior investigator Madhav Thambisetty, M.D., Ph.D., has been exploring the role that cholesterol might play in the development of Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, which is marked by microscopic bleeding and blood vessel blockage and is the second most common form of dementia.
IRP Research Highlights a Novel Target to Stop Viral Infections
By Melissa Glim
Wednesday, July 28, 2021
On July 28, health providers, researchers, patients, advocates, and governments across the globe observe World Hepatitis Day. Like this year’s theme, ‘Hepatitis Can’t Wait,’ IRP researchers are wasting no time utilizing the unique resources at the National Institutes of Health to identify innovative ways to combat the virus.
IRP Distinguished Investigator T. Jake Liang, M.D., for example, has focused his life’s work on understanding how hepatitis viruses infect, replicate, and persist in cells. The viruses he studies, hepatitis B and C, together affect more than 10 percent of the worlds’ population and are the most common causes of chronic liver disease and liver cancer. The two viruses were originally discovered in the 1980s by another IRP scientist, Harvey J. Alter, M.D., who shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine for that work in 2020. Nearly three decades later, Dr. Liang’s lab at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) worked with scientists at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) to develop a novel test to screen thousands of molecules using a technology called high-throughput screening, which led to the discovery of several compounds with the potential to block hepatitis C infection.
Human and Animal Studies Point to New Treatment Strategy
By Brandon Levy
Tuesday, June 8, 2021
Interest in the low-carb ‘ketogenetic’ diet has exploded in recent years, with legions of enthusiasts jumping on the bandwagon. The popular dietary regimen has even caught the attention of scientists seeking new treatments for an array of health conditions. For instance, a recent IRP study suggests that a ketogenic diet might make it easier for people with alcohol use disorder to stop drinking.
Future Physician-Scientists Spent a Year in IRP Labs
By Brandon Levy
Monday, September 21, 2020
Many doctors not only treat patients directly, but also make valuable contributions to research that will improve medical care in the future. Each one of these talented ‘physician-scientists’ began his or her research career under the guidance of a more senior scientist. At the NIH, the Medical Research Scholars Program (MRSP) provides just such an experience to promising young medical students from all across the United States.
Event Spotlights Students Completing Their Ph.D. Research in IRP Labs
By Brandon Levy
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
The NIH provides an extraordinarily rich environment for learning and honing the skills needed to pursue a scientific career. It’s no wonder, then, that Ph.D. students from institutions all across the United States and the rest of the world come here to conduct their dissertation research under the mentorship of the IRP’s many renowned investigators.
Nearly 150 of those students presented the fruits of their scientific work at the NIH’s 16th annual Graduate Student Research Symposium on Thursday, February 20. The insights they have produced on topics from cancer to autoimmune disease to environmental contaminants were supremely impressive and will likely contribute to important improvements in medical care in the future. For anyone who missed this exciting event, read on to learn about a few of the many research projects that were on display.
Four Questions with Dr. Tim Greten
By Brooke Worthing
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
There are over 100 different types of cancer, with liver, breast, and colon cancers among the most common. At the NIH, researchers across the organization have long been committed to furthering cancer research in an effort to increase the number of cancer survivors. They consistently push the boundaries of this field each day in the hopes that their work could lead to better diagnoses, better treatment, and better outcomes for cancer patients.
A 2018 study by IRP senior investigator Tim Greten, M.D., and his IRP colleagues did just that and more. Their research pushed the norms of cancer research by studying how a treatment as simple as antibiotics affects cancerous liver tumors. By utilizing antibiotics to wipe out the collection of microorganisms living in the digestive tracts of mice — known as the gut microbiome — the team identified a link between the gut microbiome and the behavior of the liver’s immune cells, which play a role in defending the organ against cancer. The IRP team ultimately showed that antibiotic treatment reduced the development of liver tumors in these ‘germ-free’ mice, and it also reduced the likelihood that tumors in other areas of the body would metastasize — or spread — to the animals’ livers, a finding that could one day prove beneficial to future cancer patients.
By IRP Staff Blogger
Wednesday, May 31, 2017
There are new reports of an outbreak of Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This news comes just two years after international control efforts eventually contained an Ebola outbreak in West Africa, though before control was achieved, more than 11,000 people died—the largest known Ebola outbreak in human history. Many questions remain about why some people die from Ebola and others survive. Now, some answers are beginning to emerge thanks to a new detailed analysis of the immune responses of a unique Ebola survivor, a 34-year-old American health-care worker who was critically ill and cared for at the NIH Special Clinical Studies Unit in 2015.
By Ben Chambers
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
It started with a quick tour and meeting the team. We sat in the break room to chat about what Dr. Bin Gao’s lab at the NIH IRP is up to, in preparation to return a few days later to capture photos and video of their ‘Research in Action.’ What did we find?
By IRP Staff Blogger
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Searching for answers, Johnathan’s mother, Rebecca, and father, Keith, applied for their son to be considered as a participant in a clinical trial at the NIH National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).
