The earthquake was punishing enough, damaging more than a half-million buildings as far as 200 miles from the epicenter. But the magnitude 9.0 event on March 11, 2011, centered off the northeastern coast of Japan, will be most remembered for the harrowing tsunami that followed. The earthquake and tsunami also destroyed research facilities at Tohoku University (Sendai) and other universities in the affected areas and displaced many scientists. NIH stepped up to help in several ways.
Investigating Sickle-Cell Disease, Cancer, and Addiction
BY SARA LIOI, NINDS
Congratulations to Hans Ackerman, Andrea Apolo (pictured), and Falk Lohoff, the newest NIH Lasker Clinical Research Scholars. The Lasker program, now in its fourth year, is a collaborative initiative of the NIH and the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation that will nurture the next generation of clinician-scientists.
Once upon a time, no one knew much about hepatitis C—except to call it non-A, non-B hepatitis—unitl it was identified in 1989. Viral hepatitis pioneer Jay Hoofnagle (NIDDK) has been at the forefront of advancing hepatitis B and C therapeutics since coming to NIH in the 1970s. On Nov 12, 2014, he outlined the past and future therapies for hepatitis C at the annual Astute Clinician Lecture, part of the Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series.
It didn’t take last summer’s Ice Bucket Challenge to get NIH scientist Bryan Traynor fired up about amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He has been excited about the possibility of finding a cure for this devastating neuromuscular disease since the 1990s when as a young medical student—at University College Dublin in Ireland—he attended a memorable lecture on the subject.
