Research Suggests Sleep- and Activity-Based Approaches to Treatment
By Melissa Glim
Tuesday, October 5, 2021
Mental Illness Awareness Week, observed this year from October 3 through 9, brings attention and support to the many patients and families who are coping with a variety of psychological conditions. Although an estimated 20 percent of U.S. adults and nearly 17 percent of youth have some type of mental health ailment, these conditions are still not well understood. However, research conducted at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is transforming our knowledge of one such mental health condition that affects more than two million Americans: bipolar disorder.
By Bruce Tromberg, Richard Leapman
Friday, June 25, 2021
George Harold Patterson, a senior investigator and chief of the Section on Biophotonics at NIH’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), died of complications from pancreatic cancer on June 20, 2021. He was only 50 years old, recently tenured, with a wife, two small children, and a promising career before him. We are just so sad about the loss of this warm friend and brilliant and creative scientist taken away far too soon.
George's research focused on the development of probes and techniques for diffraction-limited and sub-diffraction-limited fluorescence imaging of cells and tissues. Indeed, as a staff scientist in the NIH lab of Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz, George worked intimately with Eric Betzig in the development of the nanometer-level resolution techniques that earned Eric a Nobel Prize in 2014.
NIH Researcher Recognized for Contributions to Structural Biology Techniques
By Melissa Glim
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS), established in 1863, is comprised of the United States’ most distinguished scientific scholars, including nearly 500 Nobel Prize winners. Members of the NAS are elected by their peers and entrusted with the responsibility of providing independent, objective advice on national matters related to science and technology in an effort to advance innovations in the United States.
IRP senior investigator Robert Tycko, Ph.D., was one of two NIH researchers elected to the NAS in 2020, an honor he hopes will give him the opportunity to help other scientists and improve the way science is done.
By Michele Lyons
Wednesday, January 2, 2019
The waning weeks of 2018 were busy ones in the Office of NIH History. We're constantly receiving and cataloguing new donations of historic equipment, images, publications, and more. It’s time to see what our donors have given us lately!
"I thought why could you not invert the concept? Instead of laying down hundreds or thousands of probes, how about laying down hundreds or thousands of tissue spots and probing them one antibody or gene probe at a time," remembers Dr. Juha Kononen of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) about his idea that led to this prototype manual microarray. Tissue array technology performs rapid molecular profiling of hundreds of normal and pathological tissue specimens or cultured cells. Dr. Kononen worked with Drs. Olli Kallioniemi and Stephen B. Leighton to design this tissue microarray which was initially used in the Cancer Genomics Branch. Now, the National Cancer Institute's Tissue Array Research Program (TARP) develops and distributes multi-tumor tissue microarray slides to cancer researchers based on this technology. The quote comes from a 2002 article published in The Scientist.
By Brandon Levy
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
The three-quarters of Americans who own a smartphone use them not just for communicating but also keeping a calendar, playing games, scouring the Internet for funny cat memes, and — soon — maybe even evaluating their neurological health. A new study conducted by IRP and University of Maryland researchers has confirmed the potential of smartphone apps for gauging symptoms of the neurological disease multiple sclerosis.
By Brandon Levy
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Every good gardener knows the importance of fertilizing the soil before planting seeds, and evidence is accumulating that a similar concept applies to the human body when it comes to experimental stem cell therapies. A new IRP study has uncovered how a medical technology called pulsed-focused ultrasound boosts the healing potency of a particular stem cell treatment.
By Michael Gottesman
Thursday, May 31, 2018
A fascinating statistic crossed my desk this month: Among U.S.-based institutions, the NIH has the highest representation of women scientists and engineers on filed international patent applications. I can believe it, and there’s a report documenting it from the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO), a UN-affiliated organization.
By Michael Gottesman
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
To paraphrase President Obama from his guest editorial in the November issue of Wired magazine, there’s never been a better time to be alive. One NIH institute leading us into the future is the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), which supports avant-garde investigators at the nexus of engineering and the physical and life sciences with innovations that improve global health.
By IRP Staff Blogger
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Scientists in the NIH Intramural Research Program (IRP) go to work each day in the biomedical equivalent of a candy store. The advanced equipment and shared tools readily available to researchers doing basic, translational, and clinical science in the IRP are unmatched anywhere else, which enables high efficiency and productivity within the IRP’s unique discovery model. Read more...
By Michele Lyons
Friday, February 20, 2015
"I felt that seeing this dissolution of everything that makes us who and what we are in patients really told me a lot about what makes us human. At the same time I felt very frustrated that there was so little that we could do to help our patients with severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia."
– Karen Berman, M.D.
