A Conversation with World-renowned Cellist Yo-Yo Ma
BY EMILY PETRUS, NINDS
“How can I keep from singing?” intoned NIH Director Francis Collins as he played his guitar to the tune of the 1800s hymn, “Always Rejoicing.” The lyrics had a new meaning; who wouldn’t want to sing when you’re accompanied by a world-renowned cellist like Yo-Yo Ma.
In 2009, the NIH launched the Earl Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigator Program, which aims to recruit a more diverse group of scientists pursuing interests across the biomedical-research spectrum. Meet the six Stadtman Investigators—all women—from the 2013–2014 recruitment cycle: Shahinaz Gadalla (NCI-DCEG); Romina Goldszmid (NCI-CCR); Astrid Haase (NIDDK); Katrin Mayer-Barber (NIAID); Robin Stanley (NIEHS, pictured); and Britton Trabert (NCI-DCEG).
Government Collaboration with Industry Helps Drug Development
BY ADAM THOMAS
You may have seen ads on television for Xeljanz (tofacitinib), a drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. Don’t ask me where the name came from. But I can tell you that the drug itself was the brainchild of NIH physician and immunologist John O’Shea.
To improve global health equity, “what you really need are the staff, stuff, space, and systems,” said physician Paul Farmer, co-founder of the nonprofit Partners in Health and professor and chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School (Boston). “Research has to be linked to training, [to] local capacity building, and to actually taking care of people.”
Not to be outdone by the NIH Research Festival, which takes place in Bethesda each fall, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) holds its own annual celebration of science: Science Days, which took place November 3–4, 2016. This year’s theme was nuclear hormone receptors, which mediate environmental impacts on the body.
