September 22, 2014: The government was open for business, unlike last year when the government shutdown forced the rescheduling of the NIH Research Festival from October to November. This year’s festival, celebrating “The Era of the Brain,” opened to a busy plenary session in Masur Auditorium (Building 10).
A key element in the mission of the Intramural Research Program is to respond to public-health emergencies such as the Ebola epidemic. Beyond having had an Ebola vaccine ready for clinical trial before the onset of the recent West African outbreak, the NIH Clinical Center's Special Clinical Studies Unit has long been prepared to accept Ebola patients. Texas nurse Nina Pham was successfully treated for Ebola at NIH, recovered, and returned home.
Wouldn’t it be great to have X-ray specs (or some other gadget) that would let you look deep into a cell, so you could see each molecule dancing its way through the complexity of the cell membrane or cytoplasm? NIH researchers have come up with something almost as good that allows them to view molecules at super-high magnification. Researchers shared all sorts of secrets during the concurrent symposia. Here's a sampling.
William G. Coleman Jr., a distinguished researcher at NIH for 40 years, died of cancer on August 18, 2014, at age 72. He became the first permanent African-American scientific director in the history of the NIH Intramural Research Program when he was appointed to direct the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities’ intramural research program in January 2011.
Sandya Panch (left) is the first fellow in a new three-year program, named for the late Elaine Sloand, that combines comprehensive training in hematology and transfusion medicine.
Want a glimpse into the National Library of Medicine’s (NLM’s) massive history of medicine collections that encompass millions of items spanning 10 centuries? Sure, you could visit the NLM in person, but there’s another way to explore some of its vast holdings from the comfort of your home or office. Check out the Circulating Now blog, which weaves history with current events.
NINR Celebrates 15th Anniversary of Its Summer Genetics Institute
BY ANDRIA CIMINO, NINR
The program begins simply enough—“What Is a Gene?”—but by the end of the intensive month-long training, participants in the National Institute of Nursing Research’s Summer Genetics Institute have covered a genome’s worth of molecular genetics material.
