Announcements

DEMYSTIFYING MEDICINE 2013

Tuesdays, starting January 8, 2013
4:00-5:30 p.m.
Building 50 Conference Room

The “DeMystifying Medicine” course, in its 11th year, bridges the gap between advances in biology and their application to human disease. Each class features presentations by a clinician, a researcher, and often a patient. For more information and instructions on how to sign up, visit http://demystifyingmedicine.od.nih.gov or contact Win Arias at ariasi@mail.nih.gov.

January 8: “Telomerase and Telomeropathies”; Neal Young, M.D. (NHLBI)
January 15: “Genomic Paradigm for Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy: Melanoma”; Yardena Samuels, Ph.D. (NHGRI), and Paul Robbins, M.D. (NCI)
January 22: “Hepatitis C and HIV: the Borgia Effect”; John Coffin, Ph.D. (NCI), and Shyamasundaran Kottilli, M.D. (NIAID)
January 29: “Hepatitis B and the T Cell”; Jay Hoofnagle, M.D. (NIDDK), and Ron Germain, M.D., Ph.D. (NIAID)
February 5: “Sexually Transmitted Diseases”; Thomas Quinn, M.D., and colleagues (NIAID)
February 12: “Pain: How It Happens and What Can Be Done”; Catherine Bushnell, Ph.D. (NCCAM), and Raymond Dionne, D.D.S., Ph.D. (NINR)
February 19: “Preventing Aging”; Raphael de Cabo, Ph.D. (NIA), and Jay Chung, M.D., Ph.D. (NHLBI)
February 26: “Ethics and Translational Medicine”; Christine O’Grady, Ph.D. (CC)
March 5: “Biomedical Technology: New Frontiers”; David Bluemke, M.D., Ph.D. (NIBIB), and Ronald Summers, M.D., Ph.D. (NIMH)
March 12: “Autoimmunity: Diseases and Mechanisms”; Michael Lenardo, M.D. (NIAID), and Abner Notkins, M.D. (NIDCR)
March 19: “Ticks: Lyme and Other Diseases”; Tom Schwan, Ph.D. (NIAID), and Andrea Marquez, M.D., Ph.D. (NIAID)
March 26: No session
April 2: “Turner’s Syndrome: The X Chromosome”; Caroline Bondy, M.D. (NICHD), and Vladimir Bakalov, M.D. (NICHD)
April 9: “New Hepatitis Viruses and an Old Persistent One”; Harvey Alter, M.D. (CC), and Jake Liang, M.D., Ph.D. (NIDDK)
April 16: “Vision and Blindness in the Genomic Era”; Emily Chew, M.D. (NEI), and Paul Sieving, M.D., Ph.D. (NEI)
April 23: TBA
April 30: “The Mitochondrion and Its Diseases”; Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz, Ph.D. (NICHD), and Lynne Wolfe (NHGRI)
May 7: Finale (TBA)

DIRECTOR’S SEMINAR SERIES

Fridays, 12:00–1:00 p.m.
Wilson Hall (Building 1)

December 7: “Sickle Cell Trait Interferes with the Diagnosis of Diabetes by A1C”; Anne Sumner (NIDDK)
January 11: Amy Berrington (NCI)
February 8: Dorian McGavern (NINDS)
March 1: “Potentiating Signal-Responsive Transcription: A Dynamic Dance Between Paused RNA Polymerase and Chromatin”; Karen Adelman (NIEHS)
April 12: “Ubiquitination and Deubiquitination: A ‘Yin-Yang’ Cycle in Protein Quality Control at the Endoplasmic Reticulum”; Yihong Ye (NIDDK)
May 3: “Genotype to Mechanism to Therapy; Molecular Insights in Rare Genetic Vascular Diseases”; Manfred Boehm (NHLBI)

To watch the lecture online, visit https://videocast.nih.gov

For more information, go to https://www.nih.gov/about/director/dirsem.htm

NCCAM SPECIAL LECTURE

“Natural Products: Drugs and Medicines for All Reasons and All Seasons”

Wednesday, December 5, 2012
9:00-10:00 a.m.; poster session 10:00-11:00 a.m.
Lipsett Amphitheater (Building 10); poster session, Southeast Patio
Free; open to the public; no registration required

Guest speaker David G.I. Kingston, director of the Virginia Tech Center for Drug Discovery at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Blacksburg, Va.), will review past successes of the natural products approach, with an emphasis on anticancer activity and on the reasons for the success of natural products as drugs and herbal medicines. His lecture is part of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine’s (NCCAM) annual Stephen E. Straus Distinguished Lecture in the Science of Complementary Health Therapies, which was established in honor of NCCAM’s founding director. The series brings leading figures in science and medicine to the NIH to speak about their perspectives on complementary health therapies. For more information, visit https://nccam.nih.gov/news/events/lectures or https://nccam.nih.gov. The lecture will be videocast live.

RESEARCH FOR A LIFETIME: A SCIENTIFIC COLLOQUIUM

Wednesday, December 5, 2012
8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Masur Auditorium (Building 10)
Free and open to the public

Help the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) celebrate its 50th anniversary. The event will feature outstanding speakers from a variety of disciplines who will reflect on past accomplishments and anticipate future opportunities in research and health care. A reception will follow in the Clinical Center atrium. For more information, visit https://www.nichd.nih.gov/about/meetings/2012/120512-50th.cfm or contact Katie Rush at katie.rush@nih.gov or 301-402-2205.

NIH SCIENCE EDUCATION CONVERSATIONS

Thursdays, 3:00–4:15 p.m.
Building 50, Room 1328/1334

November 29: “Bringing Underrepresented Populations into the Sciences:
What Difference Does Difference Make?”; Shirley Malcom (American Association for the Advancement of Science)
December 20: “Attending to Student Thinking in Science: Becoming a Responsive Teacher”; Daniel M. Levin (College of Education at the University of Maryland)
Dates in 2013: January 17, February 28, March 28, April 25, and May 23.

For more information visit https://science.education.nih.gov/sciedconversations or contact Jennifer Gorman Wright at gormanj@od.nih.gov or 301-402-2469.

NIH WINTER PRODUCT SHOWCASE

December 13, 2012
9:30 a.m.–2:00 p.m.
Building 10 South Lobby

The NIH Supply Center the FAR-approved first source for laboratory and office products, will be sponsoring its third Product Showcase. The vendors will be offering specials and promotions on products that are carried in the Self Service Stores as well as with the NIH Supply Center that will be available for same-day and next-day delivery. Bring your CAN cards so your order can be processed that day. Refreshments will be served. For more information, e-mail Gwendolyn.carr@nih.gov or Alicia.boglin@nih.gov.

Visit the NIH Self Service Stores: Building 10 (B2B41) and Building 31 (B1A47), open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. until 4:15 p.m. Questions or concerns e-mail us at nihsupplycenter@od.nih.gov or call the Customer Service Representative at (301) 496-3517. The NIH Supply Center is an ISO-9001: 2008 Certified Organization.

JOIN THE NIH-HHS MENTORING PROGRAM DECEMBER 2012 COHORT

NIH invites you to join the HHS Mentoring Program. Federal employees interested in serving as mentors and mentees across the NIH community are invited to join the NIH December 2012 cohort. “Partnering for Excellence” through building a confidential, interactive relationship is the cornerstone of this program. The program’s emphasis on developing core, leadership and management competencies at various levels will ensure a beneficial experience for both mentors and mentees.

This free program includes:

• Peer-to-peer and senior-to-junior mentoring relationships
• Online application and matching system to connect individuals
• Online mentor-mentee orientation
• One-year mentoring relationship commitment
• Professional development events and activities

As a tool in employee development, the Mentoring Program does not supplant the NIH scientific mentoring and customized Institutes and Centers (ICs) leadership mentoring programs that are available to employees in some ICs. Instead, it is intended to fill any gaps where those programs do not exist and enables NIH-wide or even across HHS relationships.
Find NIH-specific information at the NIH-HHS Mentoring Program site: https://trainingcenter.nih.gov/HHS_Mentoring.html
If you need help with any aspect of the program, e-mail nihhhsmentoringprog@od.NIH.gov

AWARDS

Dan Kastner Elected to IOM

Dan Kastner, the scientific director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, has been elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM). Election to this prestigious advisory body is among the highest honors in the area of health and medicine. New IOM members are elected by current active members through a selective process that recognizes individuals who have made major contributions to the advancement of medical science, health care, and public health. This honor reflects Kastner’s accomplishments as a physician-scientist and a major leader in biomedical research. This honor comes a year after he was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, an elite body of distinguished U.S. scientists and engineers who advise the federal government on science and technology.

NIH Alum Wins 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

NIH Alumnus Robert J. Lefkowitz was named co-winner, with Brian K. Kobilka, of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for studies of protein receptors that let body cells sense and respond to outside signals. Now a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and professor of medicine and biochemistry at Duke University Medical Center (Durham, N.C.), Lefkowitz was a clinical and research associate at NIH from 1968 to 1970 and worked with Ira Pastan and Jesse Roth at NIDDK, where they developed the original concept of cell surface receptors. This was at a time when there was still much skepticism as to whether receptors really existed.

NEW NAME FOR NCI-FREDERICK

NCI-Frederick was renamed the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNL) recently. Find out more at its new Web site (https://frederick.cancer.gov/) and in a story in an upcoming issue of the NIH Catalyst.

CORRECTION

In the article entitled “An NIH Research Dynasty in Building 3: A Who’s Who of Biomedical Researchers” (NIH Catalyst, September-October 2012 issue), Sue Goo Rhee was incorrectly referred to as a former Stadtman postdoc. In fact he was Boon Chock’s former postdoc in NHLBI’s Laboratory of Biochemistry (the lab’s chief at the time was Earl Stadtman). In 1994, Rhee was named chief of the Laboratory of Cell Signaling and was still chief when it was moved to Building 50 in 2001. The Catalyst regrets the error.